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agazine.com

Mind the Gap – The College

Ad & Article Watching for Developmental Experience for
Index Page 4 “Holes” in Your Potential of Homeschooling
Child’s Music High-School
Education Page 38 Students.
Page 6 Page 28
 www.TheMorningStarAcademy.org/thelink
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 Ad Index
Accelerated Achievement.......... 52
Accordions International............ 44
ACE Ministries.......................... 37
A.D.A.M. Education.................. 58
AgEd Net................................... 67
American Cap & Gown............. 57
American Heritage..................... 72
American School of Piano
Tuning........................................ 44
Apologia Press...................... 17,46
Art Instruction School.................. 3
Atelier........................................ 75
Barbour Publishing.................... 13
Barb’s People Builder................ 85
Better Way Imports.................... 75
Brain Noodles............................ 16
Caravan Tours............................ 77
Christian Book.com................... 82
College Goals............................. 31
College Plus............................... 27
College Prep Genius.................. 26
Columbia College...................... 28
Cottey College........................... 30
Creekbed Technologies.............. 22
Curriculum Design for
Excellence.................................. 70
Design A Study.......................... 60
Article Index
Editorial by Mary Leppert........... 5
Mind the Gap by Diane Flynn
Keith............................................. 6
I Thought I’d Be Taller by Ann
Lloyd, PhD................................... 8
Homeschooling Pop Culture by
Elizabeth Michalak.................... 10
History at Our House by Scott
Powell........................................ 12
Grammar - the New Black Dress
by Danielle Hoagland................ 14
Good Beginnings Handwriting by
Nan Barchowsky........................ 16
Measuring Handwriting Fluency
by Rand Nelson.......................... 20
Homeschooled Entrepreneur by
Rock ‘n’ Roll
Connor Bernstein....................... 22
Defending Teaching Standards by
Frode Jensen............................... 24
Page 4 HomeschoolMagazine.com
Dig It! Games............................. 55
The Dow’s Schoolroom............. 49
Dr. Loyd’s Fraction Kits............ 24
Drive Through History............... 84
EduClime................................... 21
eHarvey School.......................... 47
eTutor......................................... 66
Excellence In Education............ 67
Explore Evolution...................... 73
Frederick Harris Music.............. 40
Herbal Healer............................. 36
Hewitt Homeschooling.............. 25
History at Our House................... 8
Interactive Learning................... 59
JAX Games................................ 19
Kidscoop.................................... 24
Kinetic Books............................. 71
Kits for Kids............................... 23
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum... 62
Literacy Unlimited..................... 15
The Little Man In the Map......... 17
Lyra House Music Publications.45
Marva Collins............................. 64
Memory Book............................ 51
Myles Music.............................. 41
Morningstar Academy.................. 2
Motherboard Books................... 75
Turning Knowledge Into Credit by
Devon J. Dougherty................... 26
College/High School Students by
Gail Lewis.................................. 28
Enjoying the Process by Mary
Hood, PhD................................. 30
Weapons of Mass Instruction by
John Taylor Gatto....................... 34
Developmental Potential of Music
by Susan Pujdak Hoffman......... 38
Music Theory Software by
Michael Leppert......................... 41
Five to Seven-Year Shift by
Dr. Marcie Zinn.......................... 42
Christian Classical Education by
Marlin Detweiler........................ 47
Review Section by Various
authors........................................ 50
Music Goals............................... 45
Music Together.......................... 39
My Father’s World..................... 88
National Institute for
Genealogical Studies.................. 74
Needak Rebounders................... 11
Neuro Education Center............. 43
New Society Publishers............. 35
Oak Meadow.............................. 68
Pearson Uexcel........................... 29
Piano for Life............................. 45
QuickCert................................... 61
Random House........................... 18
Rod & Staff Publishers.............. 80
Rosetta Stone............................. 56
Sandcastle Acting Books............ 50
Starline Press.............................. 87
Swansbury Handwriting............. 86
Talking Fingers............................ 9
Theory in a Box......................... 44
Tooties........................................ 63
University of Nebraska.............. 22
Usborne Books............................. 6
Wall Words............................ 32,33
Words Aren’t Fair....................... 31
Wordsmiths................................ 53
Writing Strands.......................... 78
Magnificent Monologues by
Emerson Sandow....................... 50
Explore Evolution by Michael
Leppert....................................... 51
Creating a Yearbook by Angela
Plattner....................................... 52
Teton Science Schools by
Staff............................................ 54
Dig It! Games by Michael
Leppert....................................... 55
Rosetta Stone by Michael
Leppert....................................... 57
Interactive Learning by
Emerson Sandow....................... 59
QuickCert Review by
Michael Leppert......................... 60
Why Teach Laura Ingalls
Wilder? by Amy Ankrum........... 62
 Dear Readers:

M
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Homeschool Maga-
zine.com, formerly known as The Link Homeschool News- HO ESCHOOL
paper/Magazine. We are very proud to bring you this new
format, which is easier to hold, easier to read and easier on agazine.com
the environment.
We are also very proud of how this new publication came Editor-In-Chief: Mary Leppert
about: Our 22-year-old son, Lennon, came into my office
mary@homeschoolmagazine.com
one recent morning and said “We should call the magazine
what it is – Homeschool Magazine. That way even people Managing Editor: Michael Leppert
who aren’t homeschooling yet, but might be interested in
it, will know what it is about and read it. And, we should michael@homeschoolmagazine.com
have the domain name match it.” That all seems obvious Publisher: Mary Leppert
now, but it never occurred to me to change the name of The
Link to something so clearly descriptive. So, now, because Ad Design & Layout: Lennon Leppert
of Lennon’s thinking, here it is – Homeschool Magazine.
com. HomeschoolMagazine.com Staff Writers:
It seems completely appropriate that our totally-home- Michael Leppert • Emerson Sandow • Linda Foster
schooled son should be the one who comes up with the
new idea, too. That sort of thinking is one of the qualities Featured Columnists: Diane Flynn Keith,
I sought for him long ago, when I read pioneering home- John Taylor Gatto, Ann Lloyd, Marlin Detweiler,
schooling books such as those with John Holt’s “unschool-
ing” ideas and others, and forged ahead into my own un- Frode Jensen, Rand Nelson, Nan Barchowsky,
charted waters with Lennon. Connor Bernstein, Gail Lewis,
We are also increasing the circulation of Homeschool
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HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 5
 ERIES
A HOT NEW S R FOR 2010
Mind the Gap –
MILLE Watching for “Holes” in Your
FROM KANE OOK EVERY MONTH
B
WITH A NEW Child’s Education
By Diane Flynn Keith
A
few years ago, my
family took a field
trip to England. I
S – 12 M O NTHS! didn’t say “vacation.” We
12 BOOK
didn’t take a single vaca-
tion in all the years we
homeschooled — but we
took lots of “educational
field trips.” Calling it that
helped to justify the cost.
One thing
my sons
found par-
ch 2010 ticularly
2010 Book 3 – Mar
Book 2 – Feb.
Book 1 – No
v. 2009 amusing
iracy3 65us.com in London
www.consp was the sign
“Mind The
OUT THESE
AND CHECK RNE TITLES: Gap.” It is
GREAT USBO
s o m e wh a t
synony-
mous with
“Watch
Your Step”
in the U.S. You see it most
often in subway stations
when you must step from
the train onto the station
platform. You have to step
across a gap or a divide, a
hole or a space — hence,
“Mind The Gap.” Not only
is the warning posted, you
hear it in recorded mes-
sages announced through
loudspeakers inside the
trains and the station --
“Mind The Gap.”
Contact your Independent Consultant today for over 1,500 The slogan has inspired
other fun and educational books from Usborne & Kane/Miller!
To find a Consultant in your area call 800-611-1655. those who see and hear it.
Songs and video games
cont ain references to
Page 6 HomeschoolMagazine.com
“Mind the Gap.” T-shirts
are imprinted with “Mind
the Gap” — and it’s not
just the tourists who wear
them. There was a movie
made called “Mind The
Gap” in 2004. I’ve never
seen it, but the Internet
Movie Data Base de-
scribes it this way, “Five
se e m i ngly
u n related
people de-
cide to take
huge r isks
in their per-
sonal lives
i n an ef-
fort to find
happiness.”
Hey! T hat
description
could apply
to just about
any group of homeschool-
ers I know.
Yet, happiness is elu-
sive, and taking risks by
rejecting conventional
schooling can make one
fearful. How many times
have you heard home-
school parents, who have
recently decided to step
off the linear school train,
a n xiously say with a
straight face, “I want to
make sure there aren’t any
gaps in my child’s educa-
tion?”
National Standards
Fear of gaps causes them
to slavishly and unhappily
adhere to a school model,
scope-and-sequence cur-
riculum that satisfies “na-
tional standards.” They
think it will ensure their
children won’t have any
“holes” in their education.
Or, they sign up with a
charter school home study
program believing that
reporting to a teacher-
facilitator every 20 days
or so will guarantee their
child has a “complete”
educat ion. T hey may
have begun to get off the
school train, but they are
trapped in suspension
over the gap, too fearful
to land firmly at the ho-
meschool station where
educational freedom
awaits.
Can following a cur-
riculum guarantee there
won’t be gaps in a child’s
schooling? Is a transcript
from a public char ter
school proof that there
aren’t any cracks in a
child’s education?
No! And if you think
so, you’re delusional! No
one has a complete educa-
tion. No one ever has, and
no one ever will. You can
learn some of the curricu-
lum all of the time, and all
of the curriculum some
of the time, but you can’t
learn all of the curriculum
all of the time! You can’t
learn everything there is
to know. And I certainly
don’t mean to imply that
any “curriculum” is even
worth knowing. As Albert
Einstein said, “Education
is what remains after one
has forgotten what one
has learned in school.”
I’ve noticed that the
parents who are fixated
on minding the gap in
their child’s education are
usually relatively new to
homeschooling. Those
that have been around a
while seem reconciled
to the fact that there are
gaps in everyone’s educa-
tion. Compare your own
education to anyone else’s
and you’ll see
that
i t ’s
true.
Building a Sugar Cube
History
Did you know that if
you went to school in one
state and your spouse
went to school in another
state, you didn’t have the
same history lessons? One
of you has a “gap” in their
education. It’s true! I was
conducting a workshop on
homeschool resources at
a Link Homeschool Con-
ference and mentioned
that fourth graders in
California public schools
study California history.
Students learn about the
California Missions and,
for some reason, build
sugar-cube facsimiles.
One mom interrupted
and said, “I’m from Penn-
sylvania, and we studied
Pennsylvania history and
built sugar-cube steel
mills.” A dad spoke up,
“I’m from Alaska and we
built sugar-cube igloos.”
Someone else said, “We
didn’t study Missions
either, we studied Egypt
and made sugar- cube
pyramids.”
As you can see, it isn’t
studying history
t hat mat-
ters,
i t ’s
build-
ing some-
thing with sugar
cubes that seems to be
of universal importance
across national curricu-
lum standards for fourth
graders.
If you keep thinking
along these lines, you can
see that the gaps in educa-
tion from one person to
the next are a social en-
gineer’s nightmare. If the
majority of the population
isn’t indoctrinated with
the same agenda and cur-
riculum, it is difficult to
predict and manage their
behavior.
Standardi zed Cur-
riculum
Let’s imagine, for a mo-
HomeschoolMagazine.com
ment, that a presidential
proclamation decreed
that every student must
build a Mission out of
sugar-cubes in the 4th
grade. Now let’s suppose
those fourth-graders are
all grown up. If you were
to hand those adults a
box of sugar cubes and
ask them what they could
do with it, what do you
suppose would be their
first answer? Duh, build
a Mission? Would any of
them first suggest adding
a few drops of methyl
salicylate to the cube and
then hammering it in a
darkened room to demon-
strate triboluminescence?
Heck, would any of them
suggest using a sugar
cube to sweeten their cof-
fee or tea?
The point of standard-
ized curriculum is to stan-
dardize people. They are
much easier to manage
and control if they think
and act alike.
We hear a lot f rom
politicians about clos-
ing educational achieve-
ment gaps. Depending
on which special interest
group they are address-
ing, you’ll hear rhetoric
about closing the gender
gap, racial gap, economic
gap, and opportunity gap
as they all (we are told)
negatively impact the
goal of public education.
Lately, the government
tells us that closing all of
those gaps begins with
preschool.
continued on page 64
Page 7
I Thought I’d be Taller... Letting Go of Picture-Perfect
By Ann Lloyd, Ph.D. nightgowns, and the ultimate blow? I the realities of a homeschooling life.

M
y sister is 5’ 9” – tall and really thought I’d be taller. Homeschooling is admirable. The
thin. My mother is 5’ 8”; Women don’t grow up dreaming rewards are great. But, the process is
my father, 5’ 11”. Unfor- of housework. My castle, in fact, was far from glamorous. The long hours,
tunately, I stopped growing in 8th spotless. Not because I had a maid; low budgets, and endless overtime
grade. It’s not that I’m short, it’s just, on the contrary, housework simply would rile any teacher’s union. Of-
I thought I’d be taller. Granted, I also didn’t exist. Likewise, many of us ten, we must work for days with little
thought I’d be an Olympic gymnast, dream of children, but deny the sleep, support, or recogni-
but that’s beside the point. As a reality of diapers, noise, tion. Yet, as adults, we
child, I’d planned to marry Prince illness, and insomnia. The are inevitably called
Charming and live in the castle. In fact, perhaps the to do things that
hardest aspect of
truth is, we’d rather not.
My dark-haired, brown-eyed prince
would raise our six children (three homeschooling, or homeschooling, like Things that
boys, three girls), while I worked. I staying home with dieting or exercising, a re n’t ea sy.
would be tall, of course, and thin. I children in gen- is not always fun. T hings we
was to be graceful, well-educated, eral, is letting go of don’t enjoy.
In fact, it can
and fabulously dressed at all times. what you thought But the truth is,
your life would be. be downright you don’t have to
It goes without saying that we would
live happily ever after. Not that we, as wom- difficult. love every aspect
In 1986, I graduated from college. en, should give up our of homeschooling to
I met my dark-haired prince and dreams. Certainly, we can be a successful home-
married him that same year. Our make them reality. But we cannot schooler. It’s OK to get frustrated.
castle, however, had a few problems. live out every childhood fantasy. It’s OK if you occasionally feel like
For starters, it closely resembled a There will always be housework, giving up. It doesn’t mean that you’re
two-bedroom apartment in Jersey. homework and hassles. Children re- a failure. It doesn’t mean that you are
I had three children in four years, quire sacrifice. And in the presence a bad wife, mother, or Christian.
and wasn’t able to have any more. In of a screaming toddler, there is little The truth is, homeschooling, like
addition, my prince gave no indica- room for fantasy. dieting or  exercising, is not always
tion that he wanted to stay home to To be happy as a homeschooler, fun. In fact, it can be downright diffi-
raise them. My beautiful gowns are we must accept, and learn to enjoy, continued on page 68

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Page 8 HomeschoolMagazine.com
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Homeschooling, Pop Culture and Creative Expression
By Elizabeth Michalak
“C
her? W ho’s
that?” I asked
this unfortu-
nate question as a twelve-
year-old spending Hal-
loween with my mother’s
family in Port Richey,
Florida. As a last-minute
addition to my satin-and-
lace Princess costume, I
had added a wig of long
black curls that fell to my
waist. My uncle’s casual
comparison of my appear-
ance to the well-known
pop singer prompted my
clueless and rather embar-
rassing question -- a ques-
tion that clearly illustrates
my childhood insulation
from pop culture. I grew
up in a home that lacked
a T.V. and computer for a
number of years and that
only acquired a high-speed
Internet connection more
recently than I care to ad-
mit. But my educational
environment was still more
significant in contributing
to my social insulation -- I
never saw the inside of a
classroom until I sat in on
a few college classes as a
teenager. Homeschooled
from the beginning of my
education, I was spared the
daily barrage of input from
Page 10 HomeschoolMagazine.com
so-called “popular cul-
ture”, and I believe this has
shaped the course of my
vocation and career choice,
namely the development of
a personal creative voice as
a musician and songwriter.
My experience as a
young homeschooler start-
ed in my childhood home
17 miles outside of Ft.
Collins, Colorado. Unwill-
ing to leave my education,
and that of my older sister,
Katherine, to the standard
educational system, our
parents chose instead to
take things into their own
hands. They also chose not
to follow a strict curricu-
lum, but, instead decided
to trust their own -- and
our -- natural instincts
about what and how we
needed to learn. This is not
to say that they subscribed
entirely to the view of
child-based learning; they
were very clear that certain
subjects were not negotia-
ble, especially English and
Math. Their main concern
was that the acquisition of
this necessary knowledge
left time and energy to ex-
plore, create and discover
what we were passionate
about.
During my early child-
hood, we were blessed to
be a part of an established
homeschool group in Ft.
Collins. Composed of
families like ours, this
group offered support,
information and plenty of
“field experience” for my
parents to draw from, and
for my sister and me it cre-
ated a social network out-
side of the standard school
system. However, the
year I turned six our fam-
ily relocated to Crestone,
Colorado, a small town
offering limited social op-
portunities in general and
nothing at all in the way of
a homeschool community.
I was slightly distressed at
finding myself in this new
environment, but, in ret-
rospect, it simultaneously
allowed and required me to
look to myself and not my
peers to decide what was
interesting, important and
valuable.
As a child, I wasn’t ex-
ceptionally musical, nor
did I have a burning desire
to become so. In fact, as a
preadolescent, my biggest
musical accomplishment
was my ability to play
Yankee Doodle at agitating
speeds and with excessive
repetitions on my dad’s
guitar. The extent that it
annoyed my family may
have been more memo-
rable than my musical
ability. At that point, I had
no notion of pursuing mu-
sic professionally -- I was
planning to run a horse
ranch in Wyoming when I
grew up. While this seems
unlikely to my more recent
acquaintances, my fam-
ily accepted this with all
seriousness. They not only
believed in my desire, they
supported me in various
ways as I spent my time
riding and working as an
assistant riding instruc-
tor. When, at the age of
thirteen, I saw my first
classical guitar concert and
began to shift my focus
away from horses and to-
ward the world of classical
music, they shifted with
me, listening as intently
about differing interpreta-
tions of Augstin Barrios’
Julia Florida as they had
about horse conformation
and days at the stable.
For the next five years,
my homeschool environ-
ment allowed me to prac-
tice classical guitar for
hours every day. Living in
the quiet town of Crestone
didn’t afford me many dis-
tractions, and I was able to
focus on my musical pur-
suits. In my mid-teens, I
began looking into college
music programs, believing
that I wanted to pursue a
career in classical guitar. I
looked at countless conser-
vatories, but I wasn’t at the
level to receive any merit-
based scholarship or even
be very sure of acceptance
to these schools. Instead, I
began looking at the music
departments at liberal arts
schools, thinking I could
pursue my musical educa-
tion in a more forgiving
environment. I was ac-
cepted to Bennington
College in Vermont, which
appealed to me as a liberal,
self-structured and open-
minded community.
 I still remember my
shock when I talked to a
woman in admissions at
Bennington and discov-
ered that I was “discour-
aged from taking more
than one or maybe two
music classes the first
year”. It was at this point
that I realized just how
alternative my view of edu-
cation really was -- I felt
restricted by the structure
imposed by a college ad-
vertising student-directed
education. I realized that
pursuing music full-time
was my top priority, but I
was beginning to question
what direction I wanted to
take. After studying classi-
cal guitar for several years,
I was beginning to lose the
enthusiasm that had origi-
nally fueled me. I wasn’t
touching the artistic es-
sence of music; I was sim-
ply learning by the book.
Again, the support of my
family gave me the space
to redirect my priorities.
This prompted the next
incarnation of my musical
journey -- a duo with my
sister, Katherine, who had
also been studying solo in-
strumental guitar for some
years previous.
It was at this point that
my lack of exposure to
mainstream media and
pop culture resurfaced,
although in a slightly less
dramatic way than in the
opening story. I haven’t
really changed from the
twelve-year-old girl who
asked “Who is Cher?”,
although I have learned in
the nine years since that
memorable episode to
be more judicious about
when and how I expose
my ignorance. Nonethe-
less, my peers still find
Get Into Shape!
me curiously unaware of as seen on NBC’s
much of the information,
images and music that “The Today Show”
saturate their daily lives.
Old friends find this lack of Rebounding Benefits the
knowledge amusing, and
kindly attempt to keep me Body in 30 Healthy Ways!
somewhat informed, while
my “sheltered” view raises
curiosity in new acquain-
tances. It has also caused
some minutes of embar-
rassment in various social
situations, as the opening
story shows. However, the
influence it has had on
my creative process is the
proverbial silver lining to
these sometimes awkward
moments.
When my sister and I
started writing songs, we
didn’t have a clue. We
didn’t have a teacher tell-
ing us how to write basic
chord progressions, rhyme
lyrics or establish a stan-
dard groove. The music
that we had been exposed Great for the entire family
to ran the gamut from
reggae to Indian classical, A fun exercise for all ages
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continued on page 83
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 11
History At Our House
By Scott Powell,
mrpowell@historyatourhouse.com
Perspective in
Studying History
Do you and your child encounter
difficult or unreasonable questions
in modern history texts? Does her
teacher expect a 10 year old, for
instance, to judge the validity of
modern free trade agreements from
the perspective of a Mexican
peasant?
Are you afraid that your
children are being indoctri-
nated, but you can’t figure out
exactly how?
How do you answer the
tough questions in a way that
respects the mind of a child
and fosters his/her indepen-
dence?
Ask Mr. Powell! Send your
questions to: mrpowell@
historyatourhouse.com, and
I’ll do my best to clear up the
muddied waters of modern
pedagogy, and keep you on
track despite modern educa-
tion.
Here, for example, is how I
handled a recent query from a stu-
dent, who brought up the following
question in an e-mail: “What part
does perspective play in studying
history?”
Normally, I would not expect to
hear this question from my students,
even those who are 14 as this student
is, because it isn’t something they
would normally think of themselves,
and it isn’t a topic I would encourage
them to pursue until they’re older.
Still, I recognize that this is the type
of question that younger and young-
Page 12 HomeschoolMagazine.com
er minds are being asked to consider
these days by teachers. Even the
formulation of the question suggests
that it was drawn from a textbook
or from a teacher’s lesson plan, not
from the student’s own concerns.
Knowing full well that the cur-
rent approach to this topic is that
“everyone’s perspective must be
respected,” or that “all perspectives
are valid,” which is a philosophical-
ly false and inappropriate conclusion
to foist on a young mind, I answered
as follows:
That’s an excellent question. Nat-
urally everyone has a perspective.
Everyone has their own background
and personal experiences. Everyone
has a unique understanding of the
world and values that are their own.
Most important of all when it comes
to history is the fact that every
person lives in a certain place at a
certain time. Thus, they are look-
ing back on the past from a certain
vantage point.
What you see, for example, from
a great distance concerning the Ro-
man Empire is thus very different
from what the Romans saw while
living in it. They saw that part of
history “first hand,” and you can
only grasp it indirectly. And yet, you
have the power of hindsight, while
they could only see a part of their
world at a time as it unfolded around
them. Also, you have many resourc-
es such as historical
atlases, the Internet,
museums, and the ben-
efit of all the experts
who have ever studied
Rome, while a citizen
of Rome did not and
thus could not know
even a fraction of what
you can learn!
The answer to your
question is thus that
perspective definitely
affects the study of
the past. Luckily for
you, people continue
to learn more about the
past than ever before,
and the tools we have for studying
it continue to improve, so you have
the chance to create an informed and
useful perspective for yourself. That
doesn’t mean that every history class
will help you to create a better per-
spective. As you know, people make
mistakes, they can choose their val-
ues poorly, and thus they can adopt
an incorrect view of the past just as
they can do so about anything, but I
hope that History At Our House will
give you some new insights since
you have already studied this mate-
rial. I hope you will enjoy and bene-
fit from the perspective I have taken.
~ Mr. Powell
 Me t heCampClubGirls
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Grammar: The New Black Dress
O
By Danielle Hoagland
ne could argue that nothing has so frequently
fallen in and out of vogue as grammar. Even the
once-coveted rainbow-striped legwarmers of the
mid-eighties have long had a better chance at a sustained
comeback than the dreaded re-emergence of grammar
study. But grammar has recently reclaimed the educational
catwalk. With grammar now accounting for two-thirds of
the writing score on the SATs and more than half of the
ACT English Test score, the world of education has been
forced to acknowledge that grammar study is the new black
dress. Unfortunately, its haunting size-six tag raises the
question: “If I couldn’t fit into it ten years ago, how will I
ever be able to fit into it now?”
Welcome your new trainer: Grammarlogues®.
Featured in The New York Times, CBS, and BusinessWeek
online, Grammarlogues® is an award-winning middle and
Grammar now accounts for two-thirds of the writing
score on the SATs and more than half of the ACT
English Test.
high school grammar tool designed by top teachers and
grammarians. Grammarlogues® cuts through the confu-
sion, combats the boredom, and erases the fear surrounding
grammar by showing students that grammar isn’t a subject;
it’s a means of expression. Here’s how we do it:
Immerse Students in Literary Masterpieces. Gram-
marlogues® simplifies the complexities of over 200 gram-
mar concepts using excerpts from more than 1,500 literary
texts and more than 1,000 authors, including two-thirds
of all Nobel Prize-Winning authors, three-fourths of all
Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, and all authors on the AP
College Board’s recommended reading list!
Teach Students To Write Like the Pros. Not only does
Grammarlogues® consistently expose students to the works
and styles of literary geniuses, but it also provides hundreds
of writing tips to ensure that students can apply the gram-
mar they are learning to their writing.
Prepare Students for Standardized Testing. Gram-
marlogues® explores virtually every grammar concept on
the SATs, ACTs, and AP English Exam.
Provide Access to Online Grammarians. No longer
do teachers need to feel like a human answer key for all
grammar questions! For a fearless approach to grammar,
Grammarlogues® includes hundreds of teacher notes that
(1) provide answers to frequently-asked student questions;
(2) suggest ways to differentiate lessons; and (3) show how
Page 14 HomeschoolMagazine.com
teachers can make grammar matter beyond the walls of the
classroom. In addition, Grammarlogues® also provides us-
ers with free access to their online grammarians.
Reduce Teacher Grading. Teachers can assign addi-
tional practice sets online at Grammarlogues.com. There,
students can practice as frequently as they wish and receive
immediate, automated scoring feedback that is logged into
an online grade book. Students can then quickly see and
track their own improvement, while teachers can assess
individual and class progress. Grammarlogues.com auto-
mates the drudgery of grading to allow teachers to focus
on the interplay of form and content both in the literature
their students are reading and the paragraphs their students
are writing.
Change the Dialogue. Grammar has often been taught
as a stand-alone subject from which students memorize
rules and regurgitate them back for testing. Grammar-
logues® was designed on the premise that information only
becomes knowledge when it can be applied. As a result,
Grammarlogues® urges students to think critically about a
given piece of writing and ask questions about the effective-
ness and intent of each grammatical element.
Understanding grammar is essential to speaking clearly,
articulating cogently, and writing powerfully. Grammar-
logues® isn’t about red pens and memorization; it’s about
thinking critically, building a solid grammar foundation,
and applying each grammar concept to communicate
more effectively. In fact, this is the underlying philosophy
of Grammarlogues®. We believe—and we have found
that students wholeheartedly agree—that when grammar
becomes a conversation that is laced with real-world ex-
amples, it is instantly imbued with a life and vibrancy that is
contagious. Suddenly, grammar concepts that students for-
merly despised and reluctantly learned only for assessment,
now become ideas that literally transform the way they read
and write. Students develop the confidence necessary to
wrestle successfully with the complexities of our language.
Grammarlogues® comes in three different versions: An
individual version, a homeschool version, and a school ver-
sion. Each version of Grammarlogues® is tailor-made for its
audience, challenging users to apply what they are learning
at every grammatical turn.
So walk into your closet, push aside the knock-off
mink coat and outdated one-piece polka-dot jumpsuit,
and grab the real thing -- that black dress. Shimmy her
on, stand in front of the mirror, and crack a little smile—
that little black dress has made you feel beautiful all
over again . . . one jaw-dropping semicolon at a time.
(Please visit www.grammarlogues.com.)
TEACHERS! HOMESCHOOLERS!
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“English from the Roots Up” Volume II is now
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 GOOD BEGINNINGS to GOOD
ENDINGS for HANDWRITING

By Nan Barchowsky

D
on’t star t with program taking into ac-
Bring Learning to Life with lowerca se let- count that young minds
ters. Don’t start and young hands need
Brain Noodles® with capitals, or even to be prepped for the
w it h nu mb e r s. W h at skill of writing by hand.
Brain Noodles® stems are a big twist
then? Let children play. Help for hands is about
on an old favorite! These giant pipe
What??? posture and pen hold.
cleaners are 18” long and 1 ¼” wide.
Yes! Barchowsky Flu- Help for t he m i nd is
ent Handw r iti ng, or the development of mo-
BFH begins with playful tor memory. Activities
activities that relate to that help with both pos-
alpha nu mer ic for ma- ture and motor memory
tions before the actual should be introduced at
characters are learned, the same time, but I’ll
as well as while they separate them for the
are being learned. BFH purpose of discussion.
gives young children the You ng ch ild ren a re
rock-solid base they need a l mo s t a lway s e a ge r
to develop legibility and to comply w it h t hei r
= fluency for handwriting instructor, so they hold
that will serve them well writing tools in a death
+ throughout the school grip in an effort to get
years, and into adult- characters just r ight.
hood. Their hands need to first
Too often, handwrit- develop the strength to
• Great for tactile and
visual learners
ing programs start with hold the tools in a re-
the replication of 62 dif- laxed manner. The goal
• Promotes kinesthetic ferent shapes. Instruc- is fluency. For that, the
learning tion is visual. Some pro- hand and fingers must
• Model concepts as simple as letters, grams introduce circles relax. Tense muscles do
numbers or complex geometric shapes, DNA and sticks with which to not move easily or effec-
make lowercase letters. tively for any task.
• Lesson plan ideas online at www.brainnoodle.net Some use undercurves, H A N D A N D
overcurves, loops and FINGERS
straight lines. BFH relies Here are a few sugges-
Email us to request a sample on motor memory for the tions: Let children make
natural, rhythmic move- patterns in the sand, or
Brain Noodles stem at xbrainmal@aol.com
ment of lowercase let- even mud. Let children
ters, those that should be h el p i n t h e k i t c h e n .
Brain Noodles LLC, 10 Clapp Road N, Windsor, CT 06095
taught first because we They can knead dough
need them more often and peel potatoes and
Phone 303-941-7829 Fax 860-688-2967
than capitals. They are carrots. If they grow im-
Email: xbrainmal@aol.com www.brainnoodle.net designed to move easily. patient, cover your ears
BFH is a well-planned and let them bang old

Page 16 HomeschoolMagazine.com
spoons or pans on the
f loor. (That helps with
r hy t h m ic move me nt ,
too.)
String beads. Children
pick up the beads with
their forefinger (call it
the “writing finger”) and
thumb.
Collect small things,
pebbles, pennies, etc.
and put them in a box.
Hang clothes or paper
banners with clothespins
that clamp. Put a cotton
ball or a tiny ball of yarn
in the palm of a child’s
hand. The child holds
the ball in place with
ring and small fingers,
leaving the writing fin-
ger and thumb to hold
a writing tool; the third
finger is a support.
If you have a chalk-
board or slate, this is a
favorite: Cut a sponge
i nt o a s m a l l s q u a r e.
Dampen it, and place
it i n the pal m of the
hand with a short piece
of chalk as described
b efo r e. T h e n le t t h e
child draw or scribble.
If the little artist/writer
doesn’t like the marks,
the sponge is in the hand
to erase for a new start.
Markers, crayons and
pencils should have the
r ight tactile relation-
ship to paper, meaning
that marks are easily
made, and leave a dis-
tinct trace; no dried-out
markers, no crayons that
are more wax than pig-
ment. Save yellow for
drawing blond hair; its
mark is too wimpy for
writing.
Always use short tools.
Cut pencils in half or use
golf pencils. Pens and
pencils are designed to
f it adult hands. They
balance well for us, but
in a young child’s hand
the weight is too great at
the back end of the tool.
This should give you a MOMMY’S
start, and inspire you to
try other play.
LITTLE
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rhythm. Write them with
the eyes closed. When
children close their eyes
to write, they can better 1-888-524-4724 www.apologia.com
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telling their hands and
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 HEARD ANY GOOD BOOKS? P LUG I NTO AN AUDI OBOOK

First Light Anne Frank’s The Water Seeker Anne Frank:

By Rebecca Stead • Read by David Ackroyd Tales From the Secret Annex By Kimberly Willis Holt • Read by Will Patton The Diary of a Young Girl
Also a Random House Children’s Books HC By Anne Frank • Read by Kathe Mazur By Anne Frank • Read by Selma Blair

Island of the Blue Dolphins Charles and Emma: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Northward to the Moon
By Scott O’Dell • Read by Tantoo Cardinal The Darwins' Leap of Faith By Grace Lin • Read by Janet Song By Polly Horvath • Read by Becca Battoe
50th Anniversary By Deborah Heiligman• Read by Rosalyn Landor Also a Random House Children’s Books HC

Turtle in Paradise The Book Thief The Jaguar Stones,

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T H E B E S T I N AUDIO P UBL IS HING F OR OV E R 5 0 Y E AR S .

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Measuring Handwriting Fluency
By Rand Nelson
I
s your child frustrated
by handwritten as-
sign ments because
they take too long to com-
plete? If your answer is
“Yes”, your student needs
to improve fluency, cor-
rect letter formation and
speed. The problem is far
too common, and yet it is
rarely mentioned in most
handwriting programs.
Your first question should
be, “How long does it
take?” Have you ever
timed a writing activity to
find out? Has there been a
change when you measure
the same activity a second
time? Is there a simple
way to measure and track
handwriting fluency as an
indicator of progress?
Handwriting fluency has
been buried in the curricu-
lum closet since the inven-
tion of the handwriting
workbook. It is a shame,
because fluency should be
one of the most important
goals during handwriting
lessons. Fluency is the
forgotten link between
handwriting and the other
language skills that are
needed for proficient com-
position and reading.
“The correlation be-
tween reading skill and
fluency at printing alphabet
letters in kindergarten and
first-grade is readily appar-
ent.” – The Writing/Read-
ing Connection by Robert
V. Rose, MD.
Page 20 HomeschoolMagazine.com
Legibility is also a nec-
essary objective. It does
little good to write rapidly
if the handwriting cannot
be read. The coaching
job is a bit like a circus
tightrope act when fluency
is included as a goal. We
must balance our effort
between fluency and leg-
ibility in order to make
progress. That balance is
constantly challenged by
motor development. But
fluency is not only about
speed. It is about learning
how to control smooth
movements as the rate of
travel increases. We can
move slowly through the
steps at first and then faster
as rhythm is established.
Children begin by draw-
ing the letter shapes they
are shown using the vi-
sual feedback system. But
the brain guides f luent
movement with a different
system. None of us can
use this fluent movement
system until we have es-
tablished some movement
recordings that can allow
it. The challenge to learn
how to move fluently is the
most valuable thing offered
by handwriting instruc-
tion. The brain responds to
the challenge by changing
the way it is processing the
symbols. A child who can
write the letters with fluent
movement no longer has to
look at models to draw the
pictures. However, if chil-
dren are never challenged
to use the fluent process,
they may well continue to
draw out of habit. Does
the child have to write
very carefully to create
handwriting that others
can read?
Early efforts to write
with rhythmic movement
often result in a product
that is not very close to the
model provided. This tends
to push the child back to
visual guidance. However,
it is true that a letter shape
can be distorted consider-
ably before legibility is
lost. This small truth is
important. It means that
in the beginning, we can
focus on good movement.
The child is challenged to
demonstrate several skills
simultaneously.
How do I hold the paper
and pencil? Which way do
I move across the paper?
Where does the letter start?
Which way do I move to
form the letter on the line?
Where does the letter end?
You will be pleasantly sur-
prised to see that the child
can come close enough
with the right approach to
training. Practice of the
correct process, including
“how to move smoothly”
as a goal, will lead to
both fluency and better
legibility as control skills
improve. With practice, the
process that becomes habit
will control the product
produced. With practice,
f luency is improved as
controlled movements are
automated. An analogy is
learning to play a musi-
cal instrument; practice
leads to pace and beautiful
music.
It is both helpful and
fun to measure and track
fluency over time. In fact,
the simple act of collecting
a measurement regularly
will usually result in an
improved score. The child
quite naturally thinks that
handwriting practice is all
about taking the time to
copy the model as accu-
rately as possible. The idea
that we are practicing to
improve accuracy and the
production rate at the same
time, is seldom presented
to the child. Introduce
the fluency test, a timed
writing exercise, and the
child begins to get the idea.
The goal to produce more
rapidly is suddenly under-
stood. He or she will prob-
ably want to try again im-
mediately to see if a higher
score can be achieved.
Conducting a Fluency
Test
Explain the rules. You
will say “Go!” to start the
action. The child will write
until you give the “Stop”
command. Depending
upon the age and attention
span of the student, you
can call “Stop” in as little
as 20 seconds, or you can
allow a whole minute for
writing. The writing task
can vary also. For a kinder-
garten or first grade child,
you can ask the child to
write as many of the letters
of the alphabet as possible.
Later on, you can assign
a word or word sequence.
When you call “Stop” sim-
ply count the number of
legible letters on the page.
The goal is to express the
fluency score as X Let-
ters Per Minute (LPM).
If you have allowed only
20 seconds (one third of a
minute), count the letters
and multiply by three. If
you allowed one minute,
the count is all you need
to express the LPM score
and track the changes over
time. Incidentally, another
important outcome stimu-
lated by regular participa-
tion is an increase in atten-
tion span. Each exposure
provides opportunity and
motivation for the child
to attend to the task for
a longer period of time.
A brief guide to tracking
fluency is available free
from Peterson Directed
Handwriting. E-mail your
request to the author: Rand
Nelson mrpencil@peter-
son-handwriting.com.
High Tech Fluency
Measurement
Thanks to Dr. Hans-Leo
Teulings, and the team
at NeuroScript, there is
now a tool for measuring
fluency on the Internet. It
provides great fun and use-
ful practice, particularly
if you have a digital tablet
for your computer. If you
want to add a tablet to your
system, visit: www.neuro-
script.net/wacomtablets.
php. You can use your
computer now for hand-
writing practice with this
special tool. Soon, you
will be able to purchase a
computer program offering
much more.
Google: NeuroScript
Fluency Test
Soevik & Teulings first
used this handwriting flu-
ency test in 1983 when they
pioneered computer-assist-
ed handwriting instruction
using a digitizer and graph-
ics display. Their research
showed that children im-
proved handwriting speed
when they focused on
improving their fluency
score using exactly this
test. Soevik, N. and Teul-
ings, H.L. (1983) Real time
feedback of handwriting in
a teaching program. Acta
Psychologica, 54, 285-2.
“The crucial result of
this study was that fluency
feedback helped improve
handwriting speed with-
out losing accuracy in the
experimental group when
compared to the control
group. This experiment has
been used as the model for
a software product which
will soon be available to
parents and teachers.” – Dr.
Hans-Leo Teulings, CEO,
NeuroScript, Inc.
For more information on
teaching skills to improve
handwriting fluency, con-
tact the author, Rand Nel-
son, mrpencil@peterson-
handwriting.com or visit
www.peterson-handwrit-
ing.com R.N. L
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 21
 Homeschooled Entrepreneur Connor
Bernstein and Kits for Kids --
Seeking To Increase Science Interest Nationwide
By Connor Bernstein

G
reetings! My name is Connor Bernstein, and
I’m the fourteen-year-old owner of Connor’s
Kits for Kids, a company dedicated to provid-
ing educational, affordable science experiences for
kids and teachers. Kits for Kids has come a long way
since I started it in fourth grade. In this article, I want
to share more about my science kits, as well as my
experience with homeschooling and how it has made
my business possible.
Most everyone now realizes that the U.S. is fall-
ing behind in science, math, and engineering. Why?
Many students didn’t have a positive experience with
these subjects in school, so a lot of kids simply aren’t
excited about science today -- many don’t even have a
good understanding of what a scientist does! Here are
some scary statistics: There are more foreign students
than American students studying physical sciences
and engineering in American universities. The U.S.
produces approximately 18 lawyers and 50 MBAs for
every engineering researcher with a Ph.D. and almost

to C o lle g e ? 30% of adults here in America don’t know that the

HeadedAccredited
Earth revolves around the Sun. Twenty-two percent
don’t know that the center of the Earth is very hot, and
over half of them don’t know that electrons are smaller
curriculum than atoms.
on your terms. We urgently need to address this problem! Home-
schooling families are especially well placed to help
take on this issue, because they have infinite teach-
ing flexibility. With my science kits, I want to show
basic, everyday kids that science is fun. I want them
to realize that one doesn’t need to be a genius to have
Ask about our transcript fun with science, to explore, and experiment. My ap-
evaluation offer, a $30 value! proach is to provide a stress-free, complete science
experience so parents or teachers don’t have to worry
about prepping, or making sure they have enough
highschool.unl.edu/TheLink time to teach all of the material. For kids, this means
Toll-free (866) 700-4747 providing an experience that encourages experimen-
tation, and is FUN, not a chore!
Kits for Kids approaches science from a different
direction than other science kits. What that means,
is that each kit includes everything kids need to dive
right in and start having fun right away. There are
enough materials to do all the experiments more than

Page 22 HomeschoolMagazine.com
once, and with variations. The easy-to-follow instruc-
tions are written by a kid, for kids, and explain (in a
way that kids can relate to!) how and why each experi-
ment works. Not only that, but the kits are allowance-
friendly, at only $14.95! My goal is to provide kids
with super fun, single-focus experiments that they
can do themselves, learning while they play. To find
out more about my kits, please check out my website,
www.kitsforkids.com.
I want to connect with President Obama’s education
team at a national and state level, and spread my mes-
sage to parents, homeschool and classroom teachers.
If I can raise enough money, my goal is to kick off a
“Have Fun With Science” tour in the fall, where I will
visit underprivileged schools in North Carolina and,
hopefully, around the country, motivating the students
and teachers to embrace science education.
So, that’s where I want to take Kits for Kids. Now,
I’d like to tell you a bit more about myself. I’ve always
been intrigued with science and discovering more
about the world around me. I also have a passion for
teaching others. When I was younger, I did countless
experiments at home and went through a bazillion
science kits. In third grade, I taught my class about
polymers, and in fourth grade, taught my class about
siphons. Let’s not mention the hours my friends spent
playing with me and my science “discoveries”.
Frustration with the science kits I purchased drove
me to create my own when I was nine years old. Most
kits on the market didn’t (and still don’t!) include even
half of the materials needed to complete any of the
experiments that the boxes described. The instruc-
tions were generally hard to follow, and lacked a kid-
friendly explanation of how and why the experiment(s)
worked. These kits were expensive for what I got, and
I always felt let down when I didn’t see the value in
what I had just purchased!
I started homeschooling full time in 8th grade be-
cause the public schools weren’t able to provide the
kind of science education I craved and was ready for.
My teachers made their best effort, but accelerated
science was just not available. Despite all the benefits
I could see, the decision in 8th grade to start home-
schooling was a tough one. I didn’t know what to ex-
pect, and I don’t think my mom did either. I hesitated
to give up my friends and everything I was used to at
a regular school, but I knew I wanted to scale up Kits
for Kids. It was pretty clear that I would only have the
continued on page 83

HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 23
 Defending Teaching
Standards & Corrections
By Frode Jensen
I
t has been popular for
some time to decry
the use of the red pen
on student papers. It’s
all about self-esteem and
how the children don’t
need such negative influ-
ences pressed upon their
tender consciences. Such
poor teacher behavior
Eliminate the mystery behind fractions might indelibly influence
the child to grow up rec-
• What Is - Invert and multiply • Hands On
ognizing less of his full
• What Is - A Common Denominator • Engaging
human potential. The
• What Is - An Abstract Algorithm • Fun
educational psychologists
• Why - Doctor Loyd’s? would have ever yone
Fax orders to: 314-275-7657 believe their pronounce-
ments as truth.
Mail orders to: Dr Loyd c/o Pegasus Publications Ltd
As a youngster, I re-
PO Box 410193 St. Louis MO 63141-0193 member the new system
of every participant get-
Bring This Incredible ting a ribbon. At the time
it was called the Danish
Resource Into Your
system. Everybody was
Child’s Learning Life! a winner; nobody was a
loser. Well, it all sounded
Kid Scoop covers good in theory, and all the
many subjects! children were supposed to
Downloadable Weekly Activity be happy, but practically
Packages on a variety of speaking, the system did
fascinating Themed Topics! not work or prove helpful
in the long run.
The following quote
Brimming with is from Daniel Tammet,
who is autistic. He has
illuminating puzzles
some handicaps, but he
and games on so
has made his way in life
many fun activities.
and offers the following:
Kid Scoop believes learning is fun! “Obt ai n i ng g u id a nce
from experts in the sub-
Created for: Kids Parents Teachers ject you are learning helps
Easy to use and you to both develop the
reasonably priced! Website: www.kidscoop.com conceptual framework
Just pay and Telephone: 707-996-6077 necessary to master a field
download! E-mail: thescoop@kidscoop.com of study and avoid many
Page 24 HomeschoolMagazine.com
of the potential discourag-
ing pitfalls that can lead
to discouragement. Get-
ting feedback on wrong
answers allows the brain
to eliminate them from
its bank of possible future
responses. Consequently,
learners can ignore poor
choices and focus their
attention on good ones.”
(p 33 Embracing the Wide
Sky).
He’s t a l k i ng a b out
teachers and st udents
here. He’s saying that it
is the teacher’s job to tell
the student where his mis-
takes are. He’s saying that
not only is it acceptable to
mark an error with a red
pen, it is necessary to help
prevent the student from
making the same mistake
again. What a defense
for correcting mistakes.
While the student’s ego
may take a bit of a hit for
the moment, if the student
learns from his mistake,
he won’t be taking future
hits in that department.
Tammet’s statement
is a rationale for quality
teaching and clear materi-
als. The teacher’s job is
to teach, to put the infor-
mation forward in such a
fashion so as to help the
student learn the material,
to master it. After having
taught the material, the
teacher is then to assign
and correct the student’s
work over what has been
taught, and hopef ully
learned. In the process of chanical; they are objec-
reviewing the student’s tive. The teacher also
work, the teacher should looks to see if the student
praise what can be praised follows the directions
and note the errors that posed by the assignment
occur. and how thoroughly the
W hen deali ng w it h student expresses his an-
objective facts, the pro- swer. This is a bit more
cess is straightforward. subjective and generally Lightning
Lightning
Lightning Literature
Literature and
Literature and Composition
Composition
In math, for instance, the requires comment on the Guides
Guides
student either gets the teacher’s part, both posi- Guides for Grades 7-12 by
for
for Grades 7-12 by Hewitt
Hewitt
right answer or he doesn’t. tive and negative. Later,
The
The
Thedifference
difference
difference between
between
between thethe right
right word
word and
and the
the
Content-driven subjects the teacher will confer
almost
almost right
right word
word is
is the difference between
almost right word is the difference between
lend themselves to ob- with the student about the lightning
lightning
lightning and
and
and aa lightning
lightning bug.
bug.
jectivity. It is the same in assignment and perhaps —Mark
—Mark Twain
—Mark Twain
English to some extent. explain some things in Writing
Writing
Writingis is
is critical
critical
critical to
to
to so
so
so many
many
many aspects
aspects of
of our
our lives—
lives—
Let’s take writing as an more detail. All of this is finding
finding
findingand
and
andkeeping
keeping aaa good
keeping good job,
good job, expressing
job, expressing our beliefs and
our beliefs and
example. The student has designed to improve the passions,
passions,
passions,communicating
communicating
communicating crucial
crucial
crucial information.
information. We
We maymay not
not be
be
be
read a piece of literature student’s performance on novelists
novelists or
or journalists—but
journalists—but most of us will write a report
novelists or journalists—but most of us will write a report for for
for
our
our
ourboss,
boss,
boss,aaaletter
letter
letter toto
to the
the
the editor,
editor,
editor, or
or kind
kind words
words to
to aa friend.
and has been asked to future assignments. friend.
write about it. Hopefully, Tammet made another Help
Help
Helpyour
your
yourchildren
children
children prepare
prepare
prepare for
for aa life
life of
of writing,
writing, to
to say
say
exactly
exactly
exactly what they mean in a way that others will note and
what
what they
they mean
mean in
in a
a way
way that others will note and
the assignment has indi- remark which is applica- remember.
remember.
remember.
cated the structure of the ble here: “Taking pleasure
He
He
Heknew
knew
knew everything
everything
everything about
about literature
literature except
except
response, a five- para- in a task is an especially how
how to
to enjoy
enjoy it.—Joseph
graph essay perhaps. The good way to learn.” What how to enjoy it.—Joseph Heller
Heller
Do
Do
Doyou
you
youwant
want
want your
your
your children
children
children to
to read
read good
good literature
literature but
but are
are
are
assignment should also pleasure can a student de- afraid
afraidthey
they won’t
won’t enjoy
enjoy it?
it? The
The Lightning Literature Guides
afraid they won’t enjoy it? The Lightning Literature Guides
have given direction on rive from doing an assign- were
were
werewritten
written
writtenby
by
by teachers
teachers
teachers with
with
with extensive
extensive home-schooling
home-schooling
what the focus of the re- ment? It could be getting a experience
experiencewho
experience who love
who love literature
love literature passionately
literature passionately and
and
sponse should be. Maybe good grade or feeling communicate
communicate
communicatethatthat
that passion
passion
passion in in
in their
their prose.
prose.
the student is to discuss competency or getting Literature
Literature
Literature cancan
can transform
transform
transform our
our hearts
hearts and
and our
our lives.
lives. Dig
Dig
the plot and explain the praise for his effort. The deep
deep
deepinto
into
intoauthors
authors
authors like
like
like Dickens,
Dickens,
Dickens,Twain,
Twain, Chaucer,
Chaucer,
Shakespeare,
Shakespeare,
Shakespeare,Melville,
Melville,
Melville,Whitman,
Whitman,
Whitman, Dickinson,
Dickinson, Austen,
Austen, Kipling,
Kipling,
Kipling,
movement of the story teacher needs to be Eliot,
Eliot,and
and Achebe.
Achebe. Your
Your student
student will read full books and
Eliot, and Achebe. Your student will read full books and
through the problem to thoughtful about what plays,
plays,not
plays, notjust
not just excerpts.
just excerpts. Learning
excerpts. Learning about
Learning about literary elements
literary elements
the resolution. Perhaps the comments are made and such
such
suchas as
ascharacter,
character,
character, conflict,
conflict,
conflict, symbolism,
symbolism,
symbolism, tone,
tone, meter,
meter, and
and
student might be directed how they are made. This theme
theme
themeallows
allows
allowsstudents
students
students toto
to appreciate
appreciate
appreciate these
these great
great works
works in
in aa
more
moremature
maturefashion.
fashion.
to describe three charac- makes a big difference to more mature fashion.
ters from the story, the the student, but the errors Each
Each
Eachguide
guide
guide includes
includes
includes brief
brief
brief
biographies
biographies of
of the
the authors,
authors,
biographies of the authors,
hero, the villain and one do need to be pointed out, comprehension
comprehension questions
questions and
and
comprehension questions and
supporting character. I hopef ully along with answers,
answers,
answers,literary
literary
literary lessons,
lessons,
lessons,
am assuming here that the some encouragement to writing
writing
writingexercises,
exercises,
exercises, weekly
weekly
weekly
student has been taught do better and some in- schedules,
schedules, and
and discussion
discussion
schedules, and discussion
questions.
questions.
about these elements. struction as to how to do questions.
The teacher reads the better next time. Stan- ➤ Reasonably
➤
➤ Reasonably
Reasonably Priced:
Priced:
Priced:
Guides:
Guides: $24.95–$35.15;
$24.95–$35.15;
assignment and notes a dards are needed, and the Guides: $24.95–$35.15;
Complete
Complete Book
Book Packs
Packs with
with
Complete Book Packs with
couple of spelling mis- student needs to meet Guides:
Guides:
Guides:$41
$41
$41 --- $85
$85
$85
takes, a punctuation er- them, and the teacher’s ➤ Grading
➤
➤ Grading
GradingAvailable
Available
Available
ror or two, and finds a job is to help the student
poorly-worded sentence. achieve those standards. www.hewitthomeschooling.com
www.hewitthomeschooling.com
www.hewitthomeschooling.com
These mistakes are me- F.J. L 1-800-348-1750
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HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 25
Turn Knowledge into College Credit
By Devon J. Dougherty then go take it at one of the designated There are many well-known credit-

H
omeschoolers deserve to get
credit for all the hard work
they do… college credit.
How can your student build up an im-
pressive transcript that documents ad-
vanced learning? How can you inspire
your self-motivated teen? Consider all
the benefits of credit-by-examination
programs. These programs allow
homeschooled students to earn col-
lege credit in undergraduate subjects
while still in high school. There are
two other big advantages: your student
saves time on the path to higher edu-
cation and you save significant dollars
in college tuition costs.
In brief, credit-by-examination pro-
grams work like this: Once students
feel they have sufficient knowledge
of a subject, they find a program that
fits their needs, register for a test and
test centers. These programs generally
offer computer-based tests, so you get
your results right away. After the test,
as students apply to different colleges
or universities, they can share their
results and request college credit for
the exams they have taken.
Think Ahead: Comparing Cred-
it-By-Examination Policies
As your homeschooler begins the
process of applying to a college or uni-
versity, first find out if the institution
has a credit-by-examination policy.
Many institutions will grant credit --
but not all do. Some limit the amount
of credit students can earn through
exams. And different institutions may
award a different number of credits –
or just a requirement exemption – for
the same test. It’s worth looking into
well before you make any decisions.
by-examination programs, including
a new one called UExcel®, which is
taking the testing model to the next
level. The UExcel program was jointly
created by two renowned educational
entities – Pearson and Excelsior Col-
lege. Pearson is a global leader in
developing educational products for
children, schools, universities, adults
and corporations. Excelsior College is
an accredited, nonprofit distance edu-
cation institution with nearly 40 years
of experience offering credit-by-exam
and online education programs.
Advancing the Testing Model
UExcel provides some unique ad-
vantages that other credit-by-exami-
nation programs do not:
Students who pass UExcel exams
earn a letter grade and college credit
on a transcript from Excelsior College.

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Page 26 HomeschoolMagazine.com
All other testing programs simply pro-
vide a score that may be translated into
credit or simply into a course waiver.
Only UExcel provides students with
direct credit that can be counted to-
ward graduation requirements.
Because there are thousands of
Pearson VUE test centers around the
globe, UExcel exams can be sched-
uled at the student’s convenience
rather than at limited times and loca-
tions.
You get immediate results – even on
the College Writing essay exam – so
students know their grade right away.
After the exam, students can request
formal transcripts from the UExcel
website.
Most credit-by-examination pro-
grams cover a range of subjects. For
example, with UExcel, students can
prove their proficiency in Calculus,
College Writing, Statistics, Introduc-
tion to Psychology, Political Science
and Physics. A Spanish exam is set
to launch later in 2010. Homeschool
students can create a customized
advanced high school curriculum by
simply choosing the exams they are
most interested in and studying at
their own pace without having to take
a correspondence or Internet course.
To guide a student’s effort, UExcel
provides free downloadable content
guides, a list of recommended text-
books and inexpensive practice tests
(around $18 each). Each exam is two
hours long and most are in a multiple-
choice format.
Calculate the Cost Savings
What about the cost? More than
ever, people are trying to save money
or find smart ways to make their dol-
lars work harder. Each UExcel exam,
for example, costs only $85, which
translates to $14-$28 per credit, de-
pending on the UExcel exam taken.
That’s a huge savings when you con-
HomeschoolMagazine.com
sider the average community college
cost per credit is $80, the average pub-
lic university cost per credit is $220
and the average private university cost
per credit is $820, based on an aver-
age course load of 32 credits per year
(www.collegeboard.com). Taking and
passing several UExcel exams can
potentially save students and parents
thousands of dollars while advancing
the pace of the student’s academic
career.
“Students and parents around the
world are struggling to pay for a
semester’s worth of college tuition,
let alone an entire two- or four-year
education,” said Randy Trask, vice
president of market development,
Pearson VUE. “The UExcel program
is designed to help home school stu-
dents quickly and affordably earn col-
lege credit for knowledge they already
have, or are willing to obtain through
continued on page 76
Page 27
College Experience for
Homeschooling High-School
Students. Why It’s a Great Idea
By Gail Lewis
“If you want a place in the sun,
you must leave the shade of the fam-
ily tree.”1
In our sunny tropical state, we
regularly remind ourselves of a com-
mon pidgin saying: “Lucky we live
Hawaii!” I believe that homeschoolers
can reflect in a similar way on their
good fortune not to have to waste time
in high school, learning things they
already know or developing views of
knowledge-acquisition that they will
have to unlearn once they get to the
more sophisticated environment of
college. It is important, however, to
recognize that the college environ-
1 Osage saying. (The Osage
Nation is a Native American tribe in
the United States)
ment itself is a very valuable place in
which to develop the vital skills of an
informed and thinking citizen: The
ability to make informed decisions, to
acknowledge and appreciate a range of
perspectives, to manage conflict con-
structively, to contribute productively
to one’s society, and maintain a sense
of personal and civic responsibility.
“Lucky I homeschool!” Not only
are homeschoolers free from the con-
straints of rigid schedules and petty
school rules, they are in a position to
develop more intellectual perspectives
than their high school-attending peers,
and thus prepare better for what will
be expected of them in the college
setting and beyond. I made some in-
teresting discoveries during my back-
ground academic literature search for
my research project on the Running
Start Program of dual credit college/
high school courses that I did as part of
my Masters in Education (UH Manoa
‘06). I came across the work of Marcia
Baxter-Magolda concerning what she
terms “self-authorship.” In my view,
“self-authorship” is another way to
define homeschooling – gaining the
ability to develop one’s own balanced
and meaningful perspective and act
accordingly.
Baxter-Magolda asserts that self-
authorship requires the following
quite complex assumptions about the
nature of knowledge, that:
• Knowledge is constructed by
individuals in the context of relevant
evidence
• Evaluation of the evidence is
necessary in order to decide what to
believe
• Each individual has the capacity to
make these decisions
• Individuals need to have a strong
sense of identity as people who can
construct knowledge for themselves
• Interaction and engagement with
others is necessary to gain access to
other perspectives and make meaning

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Page 28 HomeschoolMagazine.com
of one’s own experience.
Most homeschooling
families would probably
concur with these asser-
tions. Certainly, they reject
the common experience
of many schooled students
who are “forced” to accept
the teacher’s choice of what
to believe in order to get
the best grades. The school
setting has a more lim-
ited definition of knowledge
than one finds in home-
schooling, and, of course,
in the college environment.
I began my study of the
Running Start Program in
the belief that early college
experience would have
great cognitive benefits for
students ready for higher
intellectual challenge than
they could receive in high
school. A desire to move
ahead faster and gain these
cognitive benefits is prob-
ably also the main reason
why many homeschooled
students begin taking Com-
munity College or four-year
college courses during their
high school years.
W hat I discovered ,
though, both through the
focus groups I conducted
for my Running Start re-
search and through my own
experience as a parent of a
college-course-attending
homeschooler, was that
the benefits were indeed as
great or greater in the affec-
tive area as in the cognitive
area. The affective domain
includes the range of per-
sonal qualities needed for
adults to function most ef-
fectively in the world. “Af-
fective growth” is an emo-
tional process of developing
such attributes as emotional
stability, self-sufficiency,
self-discipline, motivation
and assertiveness. In fact,
Now homeschool students
my research conclusions can earn college credit for
on high school students at-
tending college indicated a subjects they already know.
greater significance for the
degree of affective develop-
ment than that of cognitive
development, though the
two were closely inter-
linked in the experiences of
college by high-school-aged
students, as they are, of
course, in college students
of traditional age. Naturally,
the Running Start students
made huge strides in their
cognitive skills, but, more
important, were the leaps The UExcel credit-by-examination program gives
in progression in terms your homeschool student the chance to turn
of their readiness for new academic knowledge into real college credit on
challenges, the growth of transcripts that can be transferred to thousands
of colleges and universities.
a personal identity and the
beginning of a commitment Six Subjects – Calculus, College Writing,
to “self-authorship.” Psychology, Physics, Political Science,
I chose to conduct my Statistics – earn up to 6 credits in each subject.
Coming soon: Spanish Language.
research study on the ex-
periences of students in the Prove You are Prepared – UExcel helps
Hilo/Puna area of the Big homeschool students demonstrate their ability
to master college-level coursework.
Island of Hawaii who were
taking part in concurrent Convenient – Exams can be scheduled at
enrollment in college/high thousands of Pearson VUE test centers with
school through the Run- immediate test results after completing an exam.
ning Start early admission Help your homeschool student earn the
program, attending regular
academic credit they deserve. Learn more at
courses on site at Hawaii
www.UExcelTest.com/homeschool
Community College and
UH Hilo. The 16 students
who participated in my
study reflected a wide di-
versity of backgrounds:
Cultural, socio-economic,
rural/urban, and personal An alliance between:
lifestyle. Comments from
the three focus-group dis-
cussion sessions were tran-
continued on page 79
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 29
Enjoying the Process
I
By Mary Hood, Ph.D.
n the early childhood
profession, there is a
distinction made be-
tween “process” and
“product” when working
with kindergarten students.
In an arts and crafts pro-
gram for preschoolers, one
popular project is shaving
cream art. In this project,
the teacher gives each of
the children a metal tray, a
can of shaving cream, and
some powdered paint. The
children smear the shav-
ing cream all over the tray,
shake on the paint, and use
their hands to swirl the
colors throughout the shav-
ing cream, making a very
Page 30 HomeschoolMagazine.com
attractive mess. As soon
as they are finished, the
trays are washed off, and
nothing remains to show
their parents at the end of
the day. The emphasis is
on the creative process, and
is an example of the purest
form of art. On the same
day, the children may make
pictures of snowmen, using
pre-cut shapes that were ac-
tually created by the teach-
ers. Each picture comes out
virtually identical and the
parents are handed a prod-
uct suitable for hanging on
the refrigerator at the end
of the day.
There is a place for both
types of experiences, both
in early childhood educa-
tion and in life. Too often,
however, we place more
emphasis on the ultimate
product, and forget to value
and enjoy the process itself.
For example, when chil-
dren are learning to read
and write, too often parents
and teachers emphasize
the grade levels they have
achieved on a standardized
test, the number of vo-
cabulary words they have
learned, or the number of
books or pages they have
read in a particular week.
It often isn’t until a mother
is raising her fifth child,
or has become a grand-
mother, that she finally
learns to fully appreciate
the experience of sitting
next to a child and watch-
ing him or her struggle to
fit together sounds, know-
ing that all too soon, that
child will be off to college,
writing term papers. Many
potentially joyful moments
are lost when the product is
assigned a higher priority
than the enjoyment of the
process.
I started thinking about
this idea of enjoying the
process when I was mak-
ing Christmas cookies
for Valentine’s Day. I was
planning to use the recipe
for Christmas cookies, cut
them into heart-shapes
and decorate them with
red sugar. Unfortunately,
at the crucial moment, I
couldn’t find the heart-
shaped cutters. They even-
tually wound up as red gin-
gerbread men, without the
gingerbread. At the start of
the process, the dough was
too sticky, and kept cling-
ing to the rolling pin. At
one point I started to get so
frustrated I almost threw
away the whole batch. As I
was standing there, allow-
ing myself to get more and
more upset, contemplating
the garbage can with a
huge wad of uncooperative
dough in my hand, it sud-
denly dawned on me that I
was being ridiculous. What
was the point of this whole
project, anyway? Was it
really to wind up with a
beautiful plate of heart-
shaped cookies, made out
of white floor, white sugar,
red sugar and butter, in
order to clog the arteries of
the adults in the family and
send any visiting children
into sugar fits so I had to
scrape them off the ceil-
ing? No. The real reason I
was doing it was because
I missed the experience of
making cookies with my
children now that they are
grown up, and wanted to
recapture that feeling. I
went back to the process,
enjoyed the experience of
messing everything up,
and wound up with cookies
that were somewhat less
photogenic and holiday-
appropriate than I had
planned, but eaten with
gusto just the same.
Of course, this leads
to the next process we
all should learn to enjoy:
Weight control. Again, too
many adults get focused
on a specific product they
want to create: A slimmer,
younger-looking body,
a particular Hollywood-
created image, a certain
number on the scale. We
try to stay on diets, exercise
like crazy for a few days,
and then, too often, give
up when the scale starts to
head the other way, despite
our sporadic efforts to stay
on track. What if, instead
of focusing on the product,
we found a way to enjoy
the process, instead?
I have finally found
something I actually enjoy-
ing doing on a daily basis,
trotting through the woods
with my dog. I can’t really
call it running because I’m
just not as fast I was in my
younger days. It’s definitely
more cardio-friendly than
walking, though. The pro-
cess looks just silly enough
to make the younger run-
ners smirk and yet attract
admiring looks from the
elderly folks who are out
for their leisurely strolls. It
doesn’t matter to me what
any of them think, because
I have found the exact pace
that is right for me. Because
I am genuinely enjoying the
process, I have stuck to my
exercise plan for several
years now. Even though
my weight still fluctuates a
bit, it really doesn’t bother
me anymore because I am
much more focused on the
health aspects of weight
control and the enjoyment
of being in the woods
with my dog than I am on
the image I present to the
outside world. If I had at-
tempted to create the same COLLEGE
product through a process I
didn’t enjoy, such as going
to a gym to use exercise
GOALS
Let me help you set your
equipment, I would have goals and achieve success.
given up long ago. College is a Lifetime
The other aspect of
Investment...
weight control is diet. This
has been more of a problem JOYCE REED
College Admissions Consulting
for me because I have al- College Student Coaching
ways genuinely enjoyed the
Experienced - 14 Years as
process of eating ice cream, Ivy League Dean
cookies, and large quanti- Parent of five homeschooled
ties of chocolate. However, college grads
Caring counsel & guidance for
as my sons and daughters students & parents
have become more and
more interested in nutri-
tion, they have gradually
helped me to learn to read
labels, consider the fat con-
tent of the foods I put into
continued on page 85
Having
Tr o u b l e
DecoDing
Wor Ds?
That’s Because
Some Words Just
Aren’t Fair!
in this story, Tweasel, the pooka (elf)
entertains Molly with his version of how words
were invented. This tale is both charming and
encouraging for struggling readers.
And, as it turns out, most words really
are fair... once you learn the code!
check out “Words Aren’t Fair” by Martha J. Biery
at: www.amazon.com
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 31
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#ED85- You don’t learn when you’re talking. -Watts Wacker #ED199- Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
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Weapons of Mass Instruction
We are pleased to bring
you an excerpt (p. 145
to 151) from this much-
anticipated book by one of
America’s foremost social
and educational observers/
commentators, John Taylor
Gatto, entitled “Weapons of
Mass Instruction”.
W
hat is Educa-
tion?
Kant’s Ques-
tions and the Epic of Eu-
rope:
The great German phi-
losopher, Immanuel Kant,
posed four questions he
believed were the heart of
any educational quest:
What can I know?
What may I hope?
What ought I do?
What is Man?
It’s surely one of the
great ironies of modern life
that Germany, a national
culture which revered
Kant as the ultimate uber-
mensch, created a form of
youth training which vir-
tually extinguished philo-
sophical curiosity at home,
and aggressively exported
its system throughout the
world in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries.
You need only Google
Horace Mann’s famous
“Seventh Letter to the
Boston School Commit-
tee” to dispel any lingering
illusions that American
compulsory schooling is
a home-grown product,
or that it aims to transmit
“basic skills” as those are
Page 34 HomeschoolMagazine.com
generally thought to be. At
root, it is German.
All of Kant’s questions
must be grappled with
before a useful curriculum
can be set up to reach the
ends you wish. But if you
duck this work, or are
tricked into ceding it to
an official establishment
of specialists (or coerced
into doing the same thing),
it shouldn’t surprise you
to find yourself and your
children broken on the
wheel of somebody else’s
convenience, someone
else’s priorities.
You’ll never come close
to the exalted condition
education can offer, where
money and fame don’t
matter very much, as long
as you remain content to
memorize somebody else’s
definition of the thing.
But reflecting seriously on
what someone else says
about it isn’t worthless.
It can bring you closer
to your own truth – as
Supreme Court Justice
Potter Stewart said about
pornography, “I can’t de-
fine it, but I know it, when
I see it.” With that in mind,
I’m going to offer you no
comprehensive definition,
but three “probes” into the
mystery: One from an un-
usually acute travel writer
named James Salter; one
from a statement I gave to
a Senate committee sev-
enteen years ago; and one
from a free verse scribbled
on a legal pad while I was
wrestling with the idea
for a letter I intended to
send to my granddaughter,
Kristina, which you’ll find
as Chapter Nine in this
book.
James Salter was look-
ing for a way to capture
in words the admiration
he felt for the continent of
Europe and its history. He
began by saying that Eu-
rope helps to clarify Kant’s
questions:
“The thing it finally gave
me was education, not the
lessons of school but some-
thing more elevated, a view
of how to endure: how to
have leisure, love, food and
conversation; how to look
at nakedness, architecture,
streets, all new and seek-
ing to be thought of in a
different way. In Europe
the shadow of history falls
upon you and, knowing
none of it, you realize sud-
denly how small you are.
To know nothing is to have
done nothing. To remem-
ber only yourself is like
worshipping a dust mote.
Europe is on the order of
an immense and unfath-
omable classroom, beyond
catalogue or description.”
Confronted with the
mighty epic of Europe and
its inexhaustible bounty,
Salter is able to see how
far “the lessons of school”
are from education. Look
around you at America, as
he did Europe: Did your
own schooling teach you
how we got this way?
The next two offerings
are my own. On October
23, 1991, I got an invitation
to give testimony to the
U.S. Senate Committee on
Labor and Human Rela-
tions. The subject: Specu-
lation what schools in the
year 2000 were going to
look like. Although I’ve
polished prose, grammar
and syntax a little to spare
myself embarrassment
that an old English teacher
would write so sloppily,
the argument remains as I
delivered it. And the reader
will note that the future, as
I foresaw it a decade down
the line, happened right
on schedule. Senator Ted
Kennedy of Massachusetts
was the committee chair:
“Senator Kennedy, dis-
tinguished committee
members, guests: What
we should most fear is that
school in 2000 will look
exactly like school in 1990.
School in 1990 is almost
exactly like school was in
1890. Keep in mind, how-
ever, that if we moved back
almost another hundred
years, to 1790, the echoes
would vanish.
In 1790 it was still pos-
sible to become educated
in America because school
didn’t preempt all the time
of the young, nor did it act
as a leech upon family life
then; it didn’t impose ser-
vile habits on the growing
up time; it didn’t indoctri-
nate young minds with a
burden of too many pre-
thought thoughts.
It was still possible to
take an education in 1790
because too many people
weren’t around pretending
to give you one, forcing
you to accept what they
offered under penalty of
law. In your own Mas-
sachusetts, Senator, more
citizens were literate under
a system where schooling
was voluntary and of short
duration, than ever they
have been under the long-
term compulsion scheme
in place right now.
Whether it will ever
again be possible to take
an education easily, in
Massachusetts or any other
state, will depend upon
political decisions made
by those – like yourselves
– who hold power in trust
for the rest of us. I mean no
disrespect, only to signal
my personal sadness when
I say I don’t think those
decisions will be made.
My reasons for pessimism
stem from knowing that
failure is built into our
political system because it
forces our political leader-
ship to depend for its elec-
tion on the same financial
interests which profit from
schools staying the way
they already are. Schools
are a most lucrative source
of contracts and an enor-
mous jobs project with
sinecures for friends and
relatives of your campaign
donors. Don’t chalk that
up to cynicism, unless you
acknowledge why your
hands are tied in regard
to school change, you’re
certain to make the same
mistakes year after year in
counterfeit reforms.
Change isn’t likely to
be possible from any po-
litical center for the same
reasons, but it can come
from def iant personal
decisions made by simple
men and women who
won’t stand still for their
kids being outraged any
more – like the revolution
of homeschoolers taking
place nationwide. This sys-
tem has had a century to
prove itself; that’s enough.
It didn’t work at the start
except in house-generated
fairy tales; it doesn’t work
today, and it won’t work
better in the future.
But if we can pry the boot
of the political state off our
necks. . . here’s what might
begin to emerge. First we’d
have a long, loud national,
regional and local debate
whose purpose would be
to establish the range of ac-
ceptable definitions of an
educated person.
Professional pedagogy
has never done that except
in the airiest generaliza-
tions because it knows bet-
ter than to have its hands
tied to commitments it
can’t deliver. At the most
arrogant end of the in-
stitutional spectrum we
have public enemies like
James Bryant Conant, the
WWI poison gas specialist
continued on page 48
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 35
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The Developmental Potential of Music
By Susan Pujdak Hoffman child might be at the low end of the teach them to sing, ‘I want my

N
bell curve in one type of develop- razor’ or ‘I want a drink of water.’
ot uncommonly, a Music
ment — say, his ability to speak They can’t say it, but they can sing
Together class will include
— and be at the high end of the it.”
a child who has an obvious
bell curve when it comes to music- The same theories are often ap-
physical or mental disability. Par-
making.” plied by music therapists when
ents of young children with “special
A power f ul example of the they work with young children. A
needs” are often attracted to music
developmental potential of music- standard music therapy practice,
classes as therapy, with an eye to
making is Harrison Hammond she said, is to couple lyrics about
helping their children develop. And
of Plainsboro, New Jersey, who everyday needs and home life with
while there may be controversy
started attending Music Together familiar tunes. Singing “this is the
over whether music will make you
classes when he was just six months way we tie our shoe, tie our shoe, tie
“smarter,” there is no doubt that
old. Born very prematurely, he had our shoe” often helps teach children
music and movement together aid
mild cerebral palsy at five years old, to accomplish tasks that they are
in child development.
could not walk unaided, and had unable to do otherwise, Janet said.
Think of it this way: The brain
difficulty with fine motor control. Another common technique of
feeds on stimulation, and there are
In the mind of his mother, Joan professional music therapists is
few, if any, activities that provide
Hammond, the effect of exposing improvisation, which is important
stimulation to so many nerves at
Harrison to musical experiences for children’s growth. “It develops
once, as music. In addition to its
can’t be overstated. She credits con- the child’s sense of self, sense of
most obvious roles in encouraging
stant musical stimulation with hav- control,” explained Ashley Scott,
appreciation of and proficiency in
ing done everything from helping a certified music therapist and a
music, music instruction has been
Harrison’s speech development to Music Together teacher in Virginia.
shown to be influential in nearly
improving his social skills. “Some In Music Together classes, she said,
all the ways children develop. It
of his first vocalizations were in improvisation happens often dur-
facilitates language acquisition,
class,” she said, “where they do ing the play-alongs. “I can play the
hones fine and gross motor skills,
repetitive music sounds, rhythms, way they play. If they are banging
promotes socialization, and encour-
and tonal patterns. All of a sudden their cymbals on the floor, I can
ages emotional growth. Kenneth
one day, when he was two-and-a- bang my tambourine on the floor.”
K. Guilmartin, the founder and
half, Harrison was able to do that.” In this way she meets each child
director of both Music Together and
Music therapists, in fact, have at his level and affirms his contri-
its Lab School in Princeton, New
long drawn on the power of music bution by mirroring it. “My goals
Jersey, puts it this way: “Music and
to aid in language development. are to develop children’s fine and
movement classes are developmen-
A common example is the way gross motor skills, to work on their
tal for all young children, regardless
they work with stroke victims who speech and language development,
of whether we think of the child as
have lost function in the brain’s to develop socialization, and to
‘normal’ or not, ‘talented’ or not.”
language areas but not in the areas work on cognition, as in counting.”
No one knows what a profoundly
which control music. “People who Nor should the playfulness of
disabled child is actually hearing
have strokes can often remember music and its ability to energize
or whether she is experiencing a
lullabies and early childhood melo- be overlooked as powerful devel-
song differently from the “normal”
dies, so what you do in working opmental tools. “Music facilitates
child next to her, but she can enjoy
with them is to pull the words out movement, which is so important
the experience just as much — and
through rhythm and melody,” ex- to young children,” Janet Camp-
may be getting as much, or more,
plained Janet Campbell, a Music bell said. “Tapping a tambourine
from it. As Ken says, “Music intel-
Together teacher in New Jersey and requires eye-hand coordination
ligence is one of many independent
a certified music therapist. “You
intelligences human beings have. A continued on page 81

Page 38 HomeschoolMagazine.com
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 Homeschoolers Understand
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Music Theory Software
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HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 41
The Five-to-Seven Year Shift
By Dr. Marcie Zinn,
Attainment Center for Neuroeducation
W
hat is Cognitive Devel-
opment and how does
it help us educate our
children? It is really obvious that
children at different ages have ca-
pabilities that are commensurate
with their age. 6-month-olds can-
not walk, toddlers do not present
their ideas in the same manner as
a 10-year-old, and teenagers are
closer to adults than children. So,
how does developmental science
help a parent when they have a
“case study” right there, in front
of them, every day? How can
developmental science give a
parent, who is constructing a cur-
riculum, real help?
There are developmental dif-
ferences that may not be read-
ily apparent to a child’s parent.
However, if one thinks about
the differences between a child
who is nearly 5 and a child who
is about 7, the differences are re-
ally marked. The time between 5
and 7 is the time when children
are in Pre-Kindergarten and Kin-
dergarten, as well as being able
to participate in several other
outside activities that were not
available to the child at age 4.
The child, between the ages of 5
and 7 is very “educable,” and the
more we know how to approach
that child, the more effective we
can be, and the more interested
the child will be.
Piaget tells us that children’s
intelligence develops over time,
with each stage building on prior,
successful stages. As children
consolidate earlier processes,
they grow, but this happens across
many domains. Children do not
Page 42 HomeschoolMagazine.com
change their thinking across all
domains and competencies all
at once. During the time period
between 5 and 7, these processes
change quickly and drastically.
T h e o r y o f M i n d ( To M )
How do we all understand one
other? We are rarely aware of
ou r ow n ToM. We all utilize
intentions, desires, beliefs, and
knowledge to make the behavior
of others understandable and pre-
dictable. With autistic individu-
als, one of the most salient com-
ponents of their problem is the
lack of a ToM. Theory of Mind is
the ability to mentally represent
and interpret cognition and emo-
tion, regardless of reality. The
development of children’s ToM
focuses on mental states, such as
beliefs, knowledge, desires, emo-
tions, and intentions.
Your children have their theo-
ries of mind, which will be appar-
ent to you in their descriptions of
everyday events involving other
people. As their theories of mind
grow, integrate this into reading
comprehension. Ask them about
what the characters in the stories
are thinking, feeling, etc. Be
interested in these stories your-
self. Talk about the books they
are reading at the dinner table
and in the car. As their abilities
come “on line,” you will know it
via how their conceptions change
and become richer.
Children’s Reasoning About
Attentional Focus
Attentional focus is an often-
discussed topic. Many parents
are worried that their child does
not have adequate “focus” to do
well in school. Around age 4-5,
children have no idea that at-
tention must be focused, while
6 -7-yea r- olds u nderst a nd t he
concept of focus and know how
distractions disrupt the focus.
At t e nt ional focu s is med i-
ated by the child’s neurological
abilities. The brain takes nearly
30 years to develop, so what is
not developed at age 5? Age 7?
The answer is, a lot. Attentional
“focus” takes a lot of time, and
involves many sub-processes in
the brain.
The two brain sites that mediate
“focus” are not working at age 5.
One of them begins to work about
age 7, and the other about age 10
or 11. However, they are not fully
developed for many more years.
Therefore, your child will have
a limited “attention span.” Most
parents have a hard time accept-
ing this fact, probably because
they fear the child has “ADHD”
or a related disorder. If you want
to help your child increase his or
her span to the limits of her phys-
ical ability, use effective reward
systems. Rewards and incentives
work and, if used correctly, result
in a natural love of the thing the
child is being rewarded for.
The younger the child, the less
ability that child has to filter out
environmental happenings. Im-
mature brains do not filter out ir-
relevant stimuli. This takes time,
and is not fully operational until
the late 20’s. Attentional focus is
affected greatly by other children
in the environment, the T.V. go-
ing, extraneous noise, etc. Create
a noise-free work environment
for your child, and give your
child multiple breaks.
Attention and focus is the final
continued on page 44
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continued from page 42
common result of sev-
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ing in concert. Visual
attention requires excel-
lent lighting; a comfort-
able work environment
evokes positive emo -
tions. All of these things
are important.
M e m o r y
5 -7 Ye a r O l d
Children
Pa rent s a re of ten
in awe of their young
child’s memory. How-
ever, they are not look-
i n
• Group
events. Children through
age 5 do not know that
t h e y k n ow. M e m o r y
exemplifies a new level
of thinking present in
7-year-olds that was not
present in 5- year-olds.
Knowing how mem-
ory functions is crucial
for parents. As an ex-
ample, piano instruction
is largely done by rote
(rote memorization of
notes), which children,
starting about age 6, are
quite adept at doing. By
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Page 44 HomeschoolMagazine.com
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by what they do (“I can earlier years. Around
climb to the top of the age 7 the attributes of an
monkey bars!” or “I can older child appear to be
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fine themselves in terms ronmental influences.
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Do Your Children Know
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Christian Classical Education – Is It for You?
By Marlin Detweiler The term classical when used in of the facts in the grammar stage and

I
’ve written and spoken frequently
on classical Christian education
and I never tire of doing so—it’s
that important. However, it’s a bit
tricky to address both folks who are
new to the idea and those who are
veterans in the same effort. Let’s give
it a try.
I was first introduced to this educa-
tional model when R.C. Sproul rec-
ommended I read Recovering the Lost
Tools of Learning by Douglas Wilson.
This book impresses the reader with
both the superiority of the classical
model and the necessity of a Christian
education for children of Christian
parents. It was both convicting and
motivating.
Calling something superior today is
both bold and politically incorrect so
an explanation is in order.
education has become quite popular.
When an idea becomes popular, many
seek to use and even redefine the
term to various ends. Consequently,
defining the strain of classical educa-
tion promoted here is necessary. The
definition pertains to both method and
content in education.
Classical educational method
(pedagogy) makes use of the first
three of the seven liberal arts -- gram-
mar, dialectic (or logic), and rhetoric.
In times past it was understood that
the learning of every discipline or
subject involved first getting the basic
facts (grammar). As an example, the
Who, What, Where, and When of
history would be the “grammar” of
history. Notably absent, for now, are
the How and Why. The second stage,
the dialectic stage, takes the mastery
seeks to help the learner understand
how and why they relate. Just how
was the War for Independence related
to the War Between the States? Or,
what was the connection between
Alexander and Socrates? The rhetoric
stage builds on the factual mastery
of the grammar stage and the logical
connections made in the dialectic
stage. It is characterized by taking this
mastery and teaching the learner to be
winsomely articulate and persuasive
when discussing a topic. Listeners are
more easily persuaded when material
is presented to them in an enjoyable
way.
Classical education should also be
understood to include certain content.
Today, as was common in classical
education of the past, learning Latin is
continued on page 70

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Weapons of Mass Instruction
continued from page 35
and longtime president of
Harvard, who announced
in 1959 that education is
“whatever a school deliv-
ers.” Dr. Conant was an-
noyed that any mere citi-
zen might think he had the
right to question decisions
made by experts like him-
self. What he demanded
for himself, in essence,
was the right to say, “Edu-
cation is whatever I say it
is.”
But a public definition
of the goals of mental and
character training can’t be
avoided. If we, the people,
don’t agree on ends, there
is no way on earth to make
beginnings – would you
set out by car on a 12-year
journey whose destina-
tion was “out there some-
where”?
The principal target
of school time at present,
a target many self-satisfied
men and women con-
gratulate themselves upon
knowing, is the production
of high standardized test
scores – which correlate
with almost nothing of
value. Every president of
the United States, since
such testing was launched,
has had a mediocre to poor
standardized test score; the
same is more true than not
among corporate execu-
tives. If the scores had any
meaning, wouldn’t they be
a common piece of data
demanded by consum-
ers? Would you bet on a
Page 48 HomeschoolMagazine.com
horse without consult-
ing its past performance
charts, reduced to math-
ematical data? Yet you
are compelled to bet on
schoolteachers, principals,
superintendents, college
professors, etc., every day
without being given access
to this “valuable” informa-
tion. What kind of lunacy
is that? High standards
and standardization are
two very different things,
but you have been delib-
erately led by the rules of
Newspeak to regard them
as the same, just as you’ve
been conditioned to think
of education and schooling
in the same breath.
The long, loud, angry
national debate I’m calling
for, Senator, would settle
school’s side of the bargain
by producing a list of valu-
able human competencies
schools would guarantee
to enhance – or lose their
ability to command at-
tendance with the police
power of the state.
That said, let me give
you my own list:
• Educated people are
seldom at a loss what to
do with time; being alone
is often a blessing to the
educated because they like
their own company. Time
doesn’t hang heavily on
their hands.
• Educated people can
form healthy attachments
anywhere because they
understand the dynamics
of relationships.
• Educated people are
aware of, accept and un-
derstand the significance
of their own mortality and
each of its seasons. They
learn from each moment,
they gain insight all their
ages, even to their last min-
utes on earth.
• Educated people pos-
sess a hard-won personal
blueprint of value. They
accept no prepackaged
marching orders without
passing them through the
test of critical review. But
they are also aware of a
larger, human community
and its values; are knowl-
edgeable about values in
different cultures.
• Educated men and
women enjoy power to cre-
ate new things, new ideas
and new experiences; the
educated discover truth
for themselves through the
rules of evidence, not by
memorizing opinions of
others.
• Educated people detect
other people’s needs and
in moving to meet those
needs, earn a living. But
unlike the ignorant, the
educated never become
overly dependent on mate-
rial wealth for happiness,
recognizing that the most
valuable goods – love,
curiosity, reverence and
empathy – can be had
without cost.
• Educated people ac-
tively seek variety and
know how to master it suf-
ficiently for pleasure and
enlightenment. Yet, they
are aware, too, that without
a home of their own and
home responsibilities, va-
riety is hollow; experience,
superficial.
• The curriculum to be-
come educated is drawn
from great life passages
which have united genera-
tions from the beginning
of time. First is the mystery
of birth and the mysterious
emergence of self. To ex-
plore self requires intimate
knowledge of one’s parents
and ancestors – and of the
specific cultures which
helped form them. The lo-
cal cultures, that is, much
more than the abstract enti-
ties we call political states.
Who am I? Where are my
limits? What are my pos-
sibilities? What range do
the strange selves about
me display? Exploring
these things are like cru-
cial appointments an edu-
cated person must keep;
without honoring these,
only incomplete adulthood
results.
• The physical world near
and far must be thoroughly
examined, analyzed, test-
ed. This is work which
can’t adequately be done
in confinement or through
blackboard abstractions.
When compulsion-school-
ing steals time needed for
this work, the damage is
great. There is a time and
place in life’s sequence
when these appointments
must be kept; too-long
delayed and opportunity is
lost forever.
• The complex possibili-
ties of association must be
encountered and wrestled
with – it won’t work to
merely talk about these, or
see T.V. shows. They in-
clude family relationships,
friendships, companion-
ships, comradeship, love,
hate, community, net-
working and more. Each
has strengths and dangers
inherent in the form. Not to
practice each early on is to
risk becoming emotionally
crippled. But confinement
schooling is designed to
socialize children into
networks – the very weak-
est and least reliable of all
human associations. Net-
works are certain to betray
your trust if relied upon
excessively.
• Another major theme
which takes attention in
the educated mind is a
thoughtful approach to
vocation – how does one
contribute to the common
good and at the same time,
earn a living? Then we
meet the theme of “grow-
ing up” as a vocation of its
own. How is that distinct
from being a child? What
complex of obligations
accepted does growing up
entail, acceptance of which
brings maturity and inde-
pendence?
• And we can’t leave out
a very close study of Death,
the last act of the dramatic
cycle begun by the mys-
tery of Birth. Without clear
awareness of the short arc
of a life, nothing means
very much. If we lived The Dow’s
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ever be significant be-
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 Magnificent Monologues
EvErything for Kids 2
KIDS & TEENS By Chambers Stevens Published by Sandcastle Publishing,
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Explore Evolution – a Scientific Critique of Neo-Darwinism
A Scientific High School Biology Curriculum That Addresses Darwin’s Theory with Intelligent Design Possibilities
www.exploreevolution.com exploration and debate on Explore Evolution: AP/
Three components: 160-page Textbook, the development of life College
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on earth and challenges E x plore Evolu t ion:
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to the Darwinian model grade)
By Michael Leppert years ago.
of such development, Explore Evolution: Lite

E
Explore Evolution pro-
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 10 Subjects You Can Teach
While Creating a Yearbook

A
By Angla Plattner
s a home educator, you have the option to teach
your children through unique experiences. Why
not utilize a yearbook as a way to introduce new
subjects into your curriculum? Creating a yearbook will
give your children or homeschool group a chance to learn
about photography, computer skills, graphic design, jour-
nalism, time management, sales, business, advertising,
budgeting, and teamwork.
First, you need to select a yearbook company. You can
count on Memory Book Company (www.memorybook.
com/homeschool), a homeschool yearbook specialist with
more than 20 years of experience, for quality, value, and
performance. Plus, they offer an easy online design pro-
gram that allows you to create yearbooks from your home
computer. And they’ll provide help and tips to guide you
every step of the way.
Here are some ideas on how you can incorporate new
subjects your children can use while creating a yearbook.
1. Photography
Pictures are an essential element of a yearbook. Your
yearbook pages should be filled with individual pictures
and group activity pictures. Have children practice their
photography skills by taking the pictures. They should
learn how to take a quality picture with either a traditional
or digital camera by considering the subject matter, light-
ing, shadows, background and composition to ensure they
all work together.
2. Computer Skills
Creating a yearbook also requires computer skills. After
the pictures have been taken, children can learn how to
transfer the images to the computer or how to scan images.
Then, teach children how to upload pictures, re-name
files, locate files on the hard drive, and more.
3. Graphic Design
Designing a yearbook gives children the opportunity
to express their creativity. And they’ll learn important
design elements such as page layout techniques, bleed
requirements, background and image placement, and the
organization of pages with the yearbook ladder. And don’t
forget the yearbook cover – have your children create a
cover design and hold a contest to pick the winner!
4. Journalism
Aspiring writers can showcase their talent by creating
stories and captions for activity pages. You can also have
your children write an introduction or dedication for the

Page 52 HomeschoolMagazine.com
beginning of the yearbook.
5. Time Management
Meeting deadlines to get the yearbook produced on time
is important. This can also spark a conversation about time
management with your children. To ensure that yearbooks “Probably the most comprehensive
are delivered by the date you set, forms and materials need tool for teaching expository writing
to be turned in by predetermined deadlines. at the lowest price!” - Cathy Duffy
6. Sales
Once you decide to produce a yearbook, your children Why Are People
will need to sell all the copies you’ve ordered. They can
practice sales techniques by selling yearbook copies to Making Such a Fuss
other homeschool children in the group, family members, About This Book?
or clubs that will be featured in the yearbook.
7. Business a. It’s a top 100 pick
The yearbook can be treated as a business project, and by Cathy Duffy. Supplemental
children can manage the operation from start to finish. b. Students are writing
DVD Now Available!
8. Marketing/Advertising
better because of it.
A great way to offset costs is to sell advertising space
c. Teachers love the analytical keys.
in your yearbook. Children can visit local businesses to
sell ads, or approach homeschool families and ask them d. Ever yone recognizes its practicality.
to purchase space to publish words of encouragement for e. All of the above.
their children. Overall, it is a great way to learn how to *Correct Answer: “e. All of the above!”
sell, create, and produce advertising materials.
9. Budgeting/Economics • Paragraphs • Five Paragraph Essays
Teach children how to manage a budget. Start by • Research Papers • Resumes
analyzing all yearbook costs, and determine how to create • Business Letters • Book Reports
revenue while remaining profitable. Have them monitor
• Answering Essay Questions
expenditures and report periodically on their progress.
10. Teamwork It’s All Covered
The yearbook is a team effort, and your children will
learn to work with others to accomplish a goal. They can
and put to work in..
also learn effective management techniques to engage and Jensen’s Format Writing!
motivate their teammates.
What can a yearbook mean to your family?
For some, it can serve as a way to look back on child-
hood memories and friends. For others, it is a chance
to show relatives achievements and accomplishments.
Regardless of whether you pull out a yearbook twenty
years from now or if you proudly present it this year so
grandparents can see what their grandchildren have done, We also carry other books and writings on:
a yearbook is a tradition that brings people together. Your
*English Fun Stuff *Journey Into Grammer Land
children should have a yearbook to remember their home-
school experience. *Sound Spelling *Writing to Change the World... & More
What yearbook company can you trust?
Memory Book Company is the most dependable call: 541-476-3080
yearbook publishing team. With experience preserving or visit our website: www.jsgrammar.com
memories for schools and homeschool groups like yours,
they know what it takes to get the job done. Call 1-800- Schools, Libraries, and Resellers:
247-1526 or visit www.memorybook.com/homeschool. institutional discounts are available!

HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 53
Teton Science Schools
T
By Staff
eton Science
Schools turns the
wo r d ‘s c ie n c e’
into a verb by Actively
Engaging Students in the
Process of Learning.
“Tell me and I will for-
get. Show me and I may
remember. Involve me
and I will understand.”
-- Chinese Proverb
Located near the wild-
ly-beautiful environment
of Grand Teton National
Park in nor thwester n
Wyoming, Teton Science
Schools offers groups of
homeschoolers (and their
families) an almost inde-
scribable opportunity to
participate in the study of
geology, plant and animal
habitation and ecology.
Since 1967, Teton Science
Schools have educated
and inspired thousands
of children, youth and
adults about the natural
and cultural history of the
area through place-based,
field science experiences.
S c h o o l & Yo u t h
Groups
Throughout the year,
Teton Science Schools
not only offer a variety
of outdoor educational
programs for children
of all ages, but they also
custom-design three-to-
seven day “hands-on/
minds-on” programs to
meet the needs, interests
and objectives of any
group, whether the goal is
to foster leadership skills
Page 54 HomeschoolMagazine.com
or create and build aware-
ness of place-based edu-
cation using the Greater
Yellowstone Geo-ecosys-
tem as a classroom.
“Whether studying elk
migration, sage grouse
populations, wolf and
bear behavior, wetlands
habitat or wildf lower
production, this area is
a laboratory rich with
wildlife and wildland va-
riety.” Using this area and
its vast, natural wealth
as its “classroom”, Teton
Science Schools are able
to provide an unforget-
table, educational, hands-
on learning experience
for youth groups of all
ages and ability levels!
“The level of instruc-
tion at Teton Science
Schools is phenomenal,”
said, Martha Daltoso, a
homeschool mom who
has organized groups of
homeschoolers to attend
Teton Science Schools.
“Yet, they are able to
customize the program
to handle not only kids
of all ages, but also dif-
ferent ability levels,” she
continued. “It is real-life
learning. These kids re-
turn home ready to share
their knowledge because
they are so ecstatic about
what they’ve learned and
how they learned it.”
With a wide array of
existing programs and
t he c u st om - de sig ne d
programs, the students
may participate in a mag-
nitude of activities, such
as:
• Ecological field re-
search with plant
transects, water quality
testing, or snow science
• Exploration of the ef-
fects of fire, glaciers and
earthquakes on the land
• Wildlife tracking and
animal adaptation stud-
ies
• Witnessing the ef-
fects of regional geologic
forces.
• S e r v i c e -l e a r n i n g
stewardship projects
• Hi k i ng, sk ii ng or
snowshoei ng i n t he
Tetons
Accordi ng to Joe
Petrick, Educational Pro-
grams Coordinator, Teton
Science Schools has a
strong focus on field re-
search. He continued by
describing one ongoing
f ield research project
where the students are
using GPS units (Global
Positioning Systems) to
track and document the
distribution of pica, a
small rabbit-like animal.
The students are then
encouraged to develop
questions and a hypoth-
esis, collect data, synthe-
size the data, create and
share their presentation,
which encourages ask-
ing additional questions.
The information gathered
is actually used by re-
searchers in the Greater
Yellowstone Ecosystems
and beyond.
Summer Youth Ad-
ventures
Teton Science Schools
of fer nea rly 40 su m-
mer adventure sessions,
which provide a huge
variety of educational
activities for individual
kids of all ages. Six to
seven-years-old kids can
spend five days learning
about amazing animals
and their habitats, using
the tools of a naturalist
and their own senses as
they safari across this in-
credible valley -- Jackson
Hole.
One of the many sum-
mer programs for older
kids (12-15 years of age)
offers a spectacular op-
portunity for future ad-
venture/nature writers
by attending the five-day
Adventuring Authors. By
observing and absorb-
ing outdoor life, these
students will interpret,
express and record their
visions as poems, short
stories or research pa-
pers.
As Nick Delmolino,
Marketing Coordinator,
points out, “Your child
may not have graduated
from high school yet, but
this summer they can
join a university . . . the
University of Nature at
Teton Science Schools.
With over 100 courses
and multiple disciplines
for st udents enter i ng
Kindergar ten through
12th grade, Teton Science
Schools offers some seri-
ous fun!”
continued on page 81
Dig It! Games’ Interactive Archeology
Computer Game – Roman Town
http://dig-itgames.com mouse until the artifact
is completely revealed.
By Michael Leppert

R
Then the professor ex-
o m a n To w n by plains what the artifact
D ig It! G a m e s was u sed for, how it
is a fun, unique was made, etc., and the The World’s Best
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number of artifacts and
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zes or games, identify- Bring History to life!
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Roman Town is guided are placed in a Roman
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terparts – two perfume
The professor provides bottles, for instance. Learn how to analyze valuable artifacts
the player with a set of Roman Town can make Solve mysterious secrets about the lives
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the professor marks off. de e pe r d iscu ssion of home educators!
Whenever a digger finds basic math and ancient Engaging, interactive gameplay develops analytical
something, he signals coins; the professor ex- thinking and problem solving skills
with a speech balloon, plains that the Romans Content highlights the signiicant contributions the
the player clicks on it were very adept at glass- Romans made to art, architecture, language and more
and is taken to a screen blowing and even had The fun, in-game encyclopedia, L.E.A.R.N., tests knowledge
consisting of a back- glass window panes. The and retention of new information and challenges kids
ground of earth, slightly professor also explains to check, connrm and discover.
hiding an artifact – a that the furniture found
piece of pottery, glass or in these ancient sites is
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earth with the computer continued on page 83 877-213-4448

HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 55
It starts with Rosetta Stone Homeschool enhancing and accelerating
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Rosetta Stone -
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B
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HOMESCHOOL
BioTutor ▪ ChemTutor ▪ PhysicsTutor
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I
f your high-schooler
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Interactive Learning has
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HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 59
QuickCert – Live, Online Training for Microsoft Office to IT Certifications
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I
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 Why Teach Laura Ingalls
Wilder to Boys and Girls
By Amy Ankrum, curator of the Wilder Museum

L
aura’s how-to chap- forth images, thoughts and
ters on molding bul- feelings. The Ingalls hoped
lets, making cheese, for a better life for their
digging a well, decorating friends and their children.
shelves, making homemade They sacrificed and worked
butter, drying plums, fram- hard to make that dream

Laura Ingalls Wilder ing a house, and smoking come true. We are all, when
a ham, among dozens of we are at our best, drawn to
daily activities fulfill the give of ourselves to make
MUSEUM AND TOURIST CENTER “Little House” book series’ life better for others.
purpose to entertain and to It was an oasis in the tall
330 Eighth Street • Walnut Grove, MN 56180 educate. The books also grass prairie. Walnut trees
Home of “On the Banks of Plum Creek” in Southwest Minnesota instill wholesome values grew and thrived on a little
www.walnutgrove.org that are easy to agree with stream that was home to a
Toll Free (888) 528-7298 • (507) 859-2358 and conform to. few trappers and a resting
The advent ures and place for travelers. This
Enjoy learning the history of the
hands-on experiences small dot on the plains
Ingalls & Wilder families. Exhibits
include: Laura owned items, TV throughout Laura Ingalls would eventually become
series memorabilia, and life-size Wilder’s “Little House” Walnut Grove with the me-
dugout structure all within a multi- series can be used to teach andering Plum Creek im-
building complex. Visit the Plum children of all ages history, mortalized in the writings
Creek Dugout Site and Pa’s Bell. science, home economics of Laura Ingalls Wilder
Visit our Museum Complex: and how hard work can some sixty years after her
June, July, and Aug.
Daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
bring forth happiness and family worked the land and
May & Sept. survival in the harshest cir- made friends with many
Mon-Sat. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Sun. 12 p.m.-5 p.m. cumstances. On the Banks other pioneers.
April & Oct. of Plum Creek, comes to life The story of the Charles
Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Sun.12 p.m.-4 p.m. off the pages while visiting Ingalls’ family began long
November – March
Gift Store Open Only;
Walnut Grove. Visit the before they arrived in Wal-
Museum Closed museum, walk the banks of nut Grove in the Spring of
Admission: Adults $5.00, Plum Creek and remember 1874. Charles was born on
Children 6-12 $2.00 Laura’s past. January 10, 1836 in Cuba
5 & under Free
Laura’s stories parallel Township, New York.
Gift Store also available on-line
New exhibits every year the obstacles and triumphs Caroline Quiner was born
that every family faces at December 12, 1839 in
some point in their lives. Brookfield, Wisconsin. The
The train whistle beckoned United States was growing
Pa westward. That distant rapidly. The territories to
whistle resonated with a the west were rich in game,
mix of excitement, memo- furs, farmland, and open
ries, a few regrets, and a range.
strong hope for a better to- Charles and Caroline
morrow. Laura’s books can were married February 1st,
also resonate in us, bringing 1860 by Reverend Lyman

Page 62 HomeschoolMagazine.com
in Concord Township, Wis-
consin. Civil War erupted
the following April. The
Homestead Act of 1862 sent
thousands westward with
hopes of free land and more
opportunity. The Civil War
raged through 1865.
Mary and Laura were
born near Pepin, Wisconsin
in the Ingalls’ log cabin.
Mary Amelia arrived on
January 10, 1865 and Laura
Elizabeth on February 7,
1867. In the fall of 1868 the
Ingalls family moved to
Montgomery County, Kan-
sas, just 13 miles outside of
Independence, where their
daughter, Caroline Celes-
tial “Carrie” was born on
August 3, 1870. Hearing a
rumor that the government
planned on returning the
land they were living on
to the Native Americans,
Charles moved back to
Wisconsin. Charles had
unknowingly settled three
miles into what was called
the Osage Diminished Re-
serve. The man who bought
their log cabin could not pay
for it, and the Ingalls moved
home to Wisconsin.
In October of 1873,
Charles once again sold
the family’s Wisconsin
home and land to a Swedish
farmer named Anderson
for $1000. The family
moved in with Uncle Peter
and Aunt Polly Ingalls. On
February 7, 1874, Laura’s
7th birthday, the two fami-
lies crossed frozen Lake Pe-
pin. They stayed at the Lake
City Hotel until Charles and
Peter located an abandoned
cabin. The families waited
Why Buy
until spring to continue by
wagon. Peter chose a farm
on the Zumbro River but
Charles continued west.
Laura heard her first train
whistle on this journey.
Charles brought the fam-
ily to a new pioneer town
Tooties?
called Walnut Station.
This town had a railroad
Educational
Magical for ages 1 to 10
and several businesses
and residences. Charles Self-teaching
learned that a Norwegian
settler, Anders Haroldson Used by millions
(Laura’s Mr. Hanson), who
lived about a mile north Over 40 years in use
of town, wanted to sell his
land. Charles bought the
172 acres of fertile land
Great for kids & adults
Best for ages one thru college
along with the dugout on
Plum Creek. Charles’ plans Effective treatment for:
were solid. Charles began
working his plow and ox • Vision problems
team, turning up the sod for • Hyperactivity
wheat fields. With a large
• Attention deficits
crop, their future was as-
sured. Caroline kept house • Coordination
in the dugout with Mary • Dyslexia
and Laura’s help. • Behavioral problems
During the summer of
• Improve normal children in
1874, Charles and Caroline
helped organize the Union Math, Reading and Science, etc.
Congregational Church • Self-Esteem & Much More!!
with the help of Reverend
Edwin Alden, a traveling
Home Missionary, who
WHAT ARE TOOTIES?
was in charge of bringing Visit our web sites or call to get answers and
new churches to various
personal suggestions for your children.
pioneer towns including
Walnut Grove. On Decem- Search Google for other websites such as
ber 20, 1874, a new bell NetSuyo.com or Baby2T2.com.
rang out over the prairie,
announcing the dedication www.Tooties.com Call Today:
of the newly-built church. 310-643-9882
In Spring of 1875, Charles
moved the family into a Creative Ideas
new house that was built of 5328 W. 142nd Pl.
Hawthorne, CA 90250 USA
continued on page 69
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 63
 Mind the Gap –
Marva Collins Watching for “Holes” in Your Child’s Education
Seminars for
continued from page 7
Our government isn’t
the first to suggest it.
Homeschoolers
Political regimes (the
Nazis and Communists,
Consultation services to homeschoolers are for example), have come
now available! Be sure to also inquire about and gone knowing the
mea n i ng of P roverbs
our time-proven educational products.
22:6: “Train up a child
in the way he should go:
and when he is old, he
will not depart from it.”
The absorbent minds of
young children are highly
susceptible to government
control. Indoctrinate ba-
bies with the state pablum
of social and political
philosophy wrapped up in
standardized curriculum,
and they will be loyal to
their Government Nanny
forever.
The Marva Collins seminars have So, why are you mind-
been well received by the education ing the gap? What is it
community and parents. Call today exactly that you are afraid
before our schedule fills up! your child will miss?
Reading? Writing? Arith-
Her graduates have entered some of the metic? Building Missions
nation’s finest colleges and universities. with sugar cubes? Face
your fear. Give it a name.
Some of her awards include:
Make a list. Then re-
•The Jefferson Award for Benefiting the Disadvantaged
ally look at that list and
•The Humanitarian Award for Excellence determine what is most
•Legendary Women of the World Award important in order to give
•Many honorary doctoral degrees from universities such your child the educational
as Amherst, Dartmouth, Notre Dame, and Clark University
foundation that will allow
•The prestigious National Humanities Medal from Presi- him or her to become an
dent Bush in 2004
autonomous, self-directed
learner. If that is your
800-724-6650 goal, following a curricu-
lum and agenda created
by the state (or anyone
P.O. Box 6598 else) is counter-intuitive.
Hilton Head Island, SC 29938
customerservice@marvacollins.com
Learning to Read
We’d probably all agree
Page 64 HomeschoolMagazine.com
that learning to read is
i mpor t ant. Joh n Tay-
lor Gatto, the author of
“Dumbing Us Down,”
who taught in New York
schools for 30 years, re-
ports that it only takes 100
contact hours to teach a
child to read. If that’s true,
is it necessary to have
“reading” as a required
subject for an hour a day,
for 180 school days each
year, for fourteen years,
from preschool through
high school? If not, why
would you insist upon it in
your homeschool?
We’d also concur that
writing is an important
skill to learn. In our so-
ciety you must have the
skill to communicate your
thoughts legibly to some-
one else, in writing. The
debate rages about what
to teach first — print-
ing or cursive. In 2003, I
contacted Dr. Steve Gra-
ham of the University of
Maryland, who has con-
ducted research studies on
handwriting, and he said
there isn’t any conclusive
evidence that shows one
style is preferable over
the other in terms of leg-
ibility and speed. If that’s
true, why do some home-
schoolers -- who can opt
out of the school agenda
-- insist on teaching both?
Rather than learning two
ways to write, it may be
more productive to learn
one way to write along
with typing. Keyboard-
ing will be a more useful
secondary skill, overall.
Your child is more likely
to learn it quickly if you
don’t turn the activity into
drudgery with compul-
sory, schoolish lessons.
In fact, take a page from
Nicholas Negroponte’s
book. A former director
of the MIT Media Library,
he founded the non-profit
organization, One Laptop
Per Child. Their goal is
to provide every child in
the third world with the
XO Laptop computer for
free. Acknowledging that
traditional schooling is
too slow and ineffective,
their mission statement
includes this:
“Any nation’s most pre-
cious natural resource is
its children. We believe
the emerging world must
leverage this resource by
tapping into the children’s
innate capacities to learn,
share, and create on their
own. Our answer to that
challenge is the XO lap-
top, a children’s machine
designed for ‘ learning
learning.’”
In a recent interview
on the 20/20 television
prog ram, Neg roponte
reported that children in
emerging nations learn
to use the computer with
very little instruction.
They aren’t required to
take endless lessons in
computer classes. They
are simply provided with
a computer (the XO Lap-
top) and intuitively figure
it out, or are mentored
by friends who quickly
show them how to use
it. Negroponte claims it
opens their world to un-
limited knowledge while
expanding their creative
and problem-solving po-
tential. The reporter who
interviewed him double-
checked with a professor
who insisted hours of in-
struction and supervision
should be given. I guess
he’s afraid of the potential
this project has for infor-
mational gaps among the
laptop learners.
Nevertheless, Negro-
ponte says that children in
the most remote regions of
the world are being “given
the opportunity to tap into
their own potential, to be
exposed to a whole world
of ideas, and to contribute
to a more productive and
saner world community.”
If this free-style method of
learning works so well for
third-world children, per-
haps more homeschoolers
should try it. Abandon the
school model. Quit wor-
rying about gaps and get
on with the joy and adven-
ture of learning.
Learning Math
As for arithmetic, the
majority of people need
to understand enough
consumer math not to be
cheated, fooled, or kept
perpetually impoverished
in a credit-card world. In
a consumer culture, it’s
interesting that we don’t
think kids need lessons in
how to spend money. It’s
mystifying (and oh-so-
telling) that we don’t give
them lessons in how to
manage money, either.
Once your child under-
stands elementary math
processes, then teach
your kids to review and
balance bank statements.
Show them how to deci-
pher financial statements
and learn to calculate
compounded interest on
credit card balances and
loans. Show them how
to invest their money.
Take Robert Kiyosaki’s
advice. He’s the author
of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad”
and encourages parents
to give their children a
financial education. Help
them understand that it
is far better to have your
money work for you, than
to have to work forever for
money.
Next up, what would
happen if your son or
daughter never built a
sugar-cube Mission or
anything at all from sugar
cubes? Would their lives
and ability to learn be
stunted? Of course not;
that’s ridiculous. Let go of
your fear and quit mind-
ing the gap.
Homeschoolers have
embraced the idea that
school is not the only
place where one can learn
socialization skills. Per-
haps more should question
whether following school-
ish curriculum is the only
way to get a “complete”
education.
As you disembark the
HomeschoolMagazine.com
linear school train, don’t
spend all of your time
minding the gap. You
may miss the wonder-
ful sights, sounds, and
learning opportunities
that abound in the liber-
ated and abundant land-
scape of your homeschool
destination.
D.F.K.
About the Author:
Diane Flynn Keith ho-
meschooled her two sons
for 14 years in the San
Francisco Bay Area. She
produces Homef ires.
com an online journal
and resource center for
homeschool families. She
offers support and en-
couragement to thousands
of homeschool fa m i-
lies through her numer-
ous free e-lists at Yahoo
Groups. (To join the lists
visit: www.homefires.
com/support.asp.)
Diane is the author of
the book, “Carschooling:
Over 350 Entertaining
Games & Activities To
Turn Travel Time Into
Learning Time,” pub-
lished by Random House.
(www.carschooling.com)
She is also the publisher
of ClickSchooling (www.
homefires.com/free.asp)
- a FREE daily e-service
t hat prov ides recom-
mend at ions for g reat
educational websites on
the Net.
Copyright, 2007, by
Diane Flynn Keith. All
rights reserved.
Page 65

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GOOD BEGINNINGS TO GOOD
ENDINGS FOR HANDWRITING
continued from page 17
comes easier and more
efficient.
Of cou rse, st udents
should sit up in a com-
fortable position. The
non-dominant hand
should steady the paper.
Handwriting may be leg-
ible with a tight and poor
hold, but it will never
at t a i n t he s p e e d one
needs for automatically
committing thoughts or
messages to paper.
WHY TEACH HAND-
WRITING?
Do child ren need
handwriting instruction
when computers can be
used for com mu nica-
tion? For several years,
ma ny believed ha nd-
writing was becoming
obsolete. Now, it seems
that attitudes towards
handwriting are shift-
ing. In a recent article
in “American Educator”
Dr. Stephen G raham,
a professor of Special
Education at Vanderbilt
Universit y w rote, “...
researchers... have found
that, done right, early
handwriting instruction
improves student’s writ-
ing. Not just its legibil-
ity, but its quantity and
quality.” Those are Gra-
Adult Learners ham’s italics. We com-
municate more lucidly
and eloquently with pen
in hand.
It is simple logic. If
handwriting f lows well
for students, they will
enjoy writing. Too many
students with great ideas
are reluctant to put pen
to paper.
I n p r a c t ica l t e r m s ,
math problems are hard
to solve if characters are
illegible. Notes that one
needs to refer to later are
useless unless they can
be read. Also, note-tak-
ing must be fast enough
to cover the essence of
a lecture. Technologies
are out there to cover
these problems, but they
are not always available
and up and running. As
adults, our need to write
cont i nue s. T he re a re
notes, forms to fill out,
letters of congratulation,
sympathy and more that
are not appropriate for
e-mail. Most of us are
careless when texting
and sending e-mails, and
we lose the subtleties of
expression that work so
much better by hand.
WHAT METHOD TO
USE?
Liter ate per son s i n
the 19th century spent
many hours practicing
penmanship with cop-
perplate styles, keeping
jou r nals a nd w r it i ng
letters. In the latter part
of the 19th century, Aus-
tin Palmer simplif ied
handwriting, and that is
essentially the method
used today for conven-
tional cursive writing.
Ba rchowsk y Flue nt
Handwriting complies
with the way we hold our
hands now, especially
if it’s the tripod hold.
Movement is principally
in the fingers, and some-
what in the hand and
wrist.
I d e velo p e d B a r-
chowsky Fluent Hand-
writing with elementary
school children, always
searching for the easi-
est a nd most nat u r al
movements for them.
The method has proved
s u c c e s sf u l fo r t h o s e
adults who learned it as
children.
T here is no t r a n si-
tion from print-script to
conventional cursive be-
cause letter formations
never change. Children
can learn all the basic
letters and join them up
by the end of first grade.
They have learned BFH
italic cursive writing.
T hey a re happy with
their progress and are
well on the way to being
eager writers. All that is
needed is practice until
handw r iting becomes
automatic.
OLDER STUDENTS
AND ADULTS
Many learn a form of
pr int-scr ipt or manu-
script first. Formations
are top-to-bottom. Then
they are introduced to
conve nt ion al cu r sive
whe re lowe rca se let-
ters start at the baseline
and some letters change
shape. This transition
means unlearning a fine Looking for the Best in
motor habit of movement
and relearning another.
Homeschooling Support?
This is the sou rce of
most handwriting issues.
Some st udents rever t
back to the print-script
and acquire a reasonable
hand.
Others have handwrit-
ing problems. However,
it is not difficult to take
the print-script letters,
and develop the f low
of BFH into them. The
characters are not that
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I Thought I’d be Taller...
Letting Go of Picture-Perfect
continued from page 8
cult. Being responsible for
every aspect of your child’s
care and education is a
daunting task. There will
always be days when noth-
ing goes right. The days
when you wake up late, the
children are cranky, and
the dog throws up on the
rug. Clearly, the routine of
a homeschooling mother
is often a far cry from
the glamorous life most
women envision for them-
selves. It is far from picture
perfect.
Too of ten as home-
schoolers, we allow our-
selves to falsely believe
that others are achieving
an ideal that we can only
dream of. We know their
houses are clean; their
children gifted and well
behaved at all times. We
look at our neighbors with
children in school and can-
not help but wonder what
this life of leisure would
be like. Even the most
dedicated homeschooling
veterans will occasionally
question God’s wisdom.
As the saying goes, “I
k now the Lord would
never give me more than I
can handle, I just wish he
didn’t trust me so much.”
But, before you run off
to put your children in
school, take a moment
to examine the results of
your efforts. Look closely
at the product, not just the
process of homeschooling.
I’ll be the first to admit that
I don’t like grading papers,
hunting for workbooks, or
cleaning up projects, but I
love what homeschooling
has done for my children.
I love my relationship with
them, and their relation-
ships with each other.
When I see my children
stop to help, to teach, or to
console each other, I love
homeschooling. When I
see them reading or div-
ing into a project, I know
that my efforts have been
worthwhile.
As mothers -- and par-
ticularly homeschooling
mothers -- we tend to put
our children first.   Let’s
face it: Homeschooling re-
quires  sacrifice. We give
up our time, our freedom,
and, to a large extent, our
own career desires. While
our peers are off working,
shopping, or meeting for
lunch, we are home, taking
care of our children. They
attend aerobics; we chase
toddlers. They hunt for the
perfect outfit; we hunt for
lost shoes. In many ways,
such sacrifice simply goes
with the territory.
Remember, it is the
product, not the process
that counts. Let go of the
television fantasy of mar-
riage and motherhood. Let
go of the perfect picture,
because, try as we might,
none of us will ever be
taller. A.L.
Why Teach Laura Ingalls Wilder
to Boys and Girls
continued from page 63
yellow pine lumber brought
in by the railroad and pur-
chased on credit. The wheat
crop was lush and green,
and Charles thought a
house would be a wise
investment. Eleck Nelson
assisted Charles in build-
ing the new home. Because
they were close neighbors,
Caroline and Olena Nelson
also spent a lot of time to-
gether with their children.
A new school was built in
the spring of 1875. Mary
and Laura would have at-
tended this school.
Swarms of grasshoppers
(locusts) devoured all the
area crops and gardens in
1875. “I have lived among
uncounted millions of
grasshoppers,” Laura later
wrote. “I saw their bodies
choke Plum Creek. I saw
them destroy every green
thing on the face of the
earth.” Charles walked 200
miles east to find work. His
crops had been destroyed
and the family needed
money. This would be the
first of several grasshop-
per plagues. On return to
Walnut Grove, Charles
moved his family into town
to avoid the harsh blizzard
weather and to allow the
girls to still attend school.
On November 1, 1875, the
Ingalls family grew. Charles
Frederick was born. Laura
and Mary fondly called him
Freddie.
In the spring of 1876,
the Ingalls moved back to
their frame house by Plum
Creek. Charles planted a
small field of wheat. He
was unsure what nature
would bring. The grasshop-
pers once again covered the
area, destroying vegetation
and the clothes off the line.
William Steadman, a friend
from church, purchased a
hotel from William Mas-
ters in Burr Oak, Iowa. He
asked Charles to bring his
family back east to work
at the hotel in the Fall. On
July 10, 1876, Charles sold
the 172-acre farmstead to
a new settler named Keller.
The Ingalls family once
again loaded up the covered
wagon and traveled east to
live the rest of the summer
with Charles’ brother, Peter
Ingalls. Baby Frederick
was very ill. On August 27,
1876, the “awful day” as
Laura Ingalls Wilder later
wrote, baby Freddie died.
It is said he is buried near
South Troy, on land Peter
Ingalls owned.
The family moved to
Iowa. Burr Oak was an
older town that was a cross-
roads for travelers. The
family lived on the first
floor of the Burr Oak House
(now known as the Masters
Hotel). Caroline cooked,
cleaned and laundered with
Mrs. Steadman and a hired
girl. Charles worked odd
jobs at the hotel. During the
winter of 1877, Mary, Laura
and Carrie continued their
schooling. Grace Pearl, the
last Ingalls child, was born
on May 23, 1877. No mat-
ter how hard they worked,
they were not able to make
ends meet. In the Fall of
1877, the Ingalls returned to
Walnut Grove.
They lived with the En-
sign family until Charles
could build a new home.
Charles continued to work
at various carpentry jobs
and manual labor to support
his family. On November 4,
1877, Reverend Leonard
Moses was ordained min-
ister of the Congregational
Church. Laura earned
the treasured reference
Bible by participating in
the afternoon ministry at
the Methodist. Later that
spring, Charles opened
a butcher shop. Charles
became a trustee in the con-
gregation. Mary, Laura and
Carrie enrolled for both the
spring and summer terms
of school in 1878. Still,
for many, each day was a
challenge for survival. The
people of Walnut Grove
were a hardy lot. They had
survived raging prairie
fires, frigid winters, hard
births, plagues of grasshop-
pers and the loneliness of
isolation and separation
from their families.
In March, 1879, Charles
helped organize the vil-
lage of Walnut Grove and
was elected Justice of the
Peace. Mary fell ill with
scarlet fever in the spring of
1879. By July, 1879, Mary
was entirely blind. Laura
became Mary’s eyes and
described the world to her
HomeschoolMagazine.com
sister. Charles loved to play
the fiddle. Laura’s books
are filled with references to
religious, patriotic and chil-
dren’s songs. It provided a
release and a way to express
joy and share time together.
Charles was restless and
wanted to move further
west. His sister, Docia,
arrived and told Charles
of a job working for the
railroad. The pay was good,
at fifty dollars a month. He
left Caroline and the girls
in Walnut Grove while he
earned enough money to
bring them to Dakota Terri-
tory. In September of 1879,
Caroline and the girls said
goodbye to their friends.
They took the train from
Walnut Grove to the end
of the line in Tracy. They
traveled to Dakota Territory
where more adventures
awaited. They did not re-
turn to Walnut Grove.
Milking cows, school-
yard games, vanity cakes
and lemonade are but a
few of the activities Laura
describes in her book On
the Banks of Plum Creek.
Historical events such as
the Homestead Act, the
building of the railroad west
and the start of new pioneer
towns allows children to
research new subjects.
What is a badger? How do
you make homemade but-
ter? What else can you use
a coffee grinder for? These
are all questions answered
within the pages of Laura’s
“Little House” series. Her
books are timeless and can
be read by all ages. A.A.
Page 69
Christian Classical Education – Is It for You?
continued from page 47
very important. Here we must understand that we are not
primarily learning Latin as a foreign language instead of
Spanish or French. A large majority of our English vocabu-
lary comes from Latin. So, knowing Latin helps us master
English vocabulary. Additionally, Latin helps master Eng-
lish Grammar, Latin is logical and teaches us how to think,
Latin is the key to many modern languages, and, pragmati-
cally speaking, Latin students perform exceptionally well
on standardized tests for college entrance. Summarily,
Latin is a tool of leverage for mastering our own language
-- a key to the grammar stage.
In addition to making connections, the dialectic stage
should include the study of logic as a subject. Studying
formal and informal logic results in the student’s learn-
ing to think clearly and error-free. You’ve no doubt heard
it said, “We just don’t teach children to think anymore.”
Teaching logic is the most important aspect of teaching
clear thinking. Some examples might help. Formal logic
is fairly mathematical. “‘A’ cannot be ‘A’ and ‘not A’ at the
same time and in the same relationship” is a basic axiom of
formal logic. Informal logic is the study of logical fallacies.
One popular fallacy is the “ad hominem” fallacy. Ad hom-
Page 70 HomeschoolMagazine.com
inem is Latin for “to the person. “You can’t believe him,
he’s a cat-lover” would be an ad hominem fallacy.
Rhetoric becomes the capstone discipline in classical
education, and it is taught, naturally, during the rhetoric
stage. This discipline focuses on teaching the learner to
communicate so as to move the listener to action. Much,
much more than public speaking, an expert in rhetoric will
find he is able to assume positions of power and influence
because he can exert power and influence.
Finally, classical education should include reading the
“Great Books.” Mortimer Adler popularized the idea of
“participating in the Great Conversation.” Learning from
and building on the past, enjoying the time-proven works,
and identifying good and bad ideas in the present, are all
results one can expect from this kind of study. It’s quite
a shame that much of education today fails to learn from
those who went before us, dooming us to repeat their mis-
takes.
What’s even more amazing in classical education is that
it neatly coincides with child development, making it the
perfect tool for teaching our children. Grammar school age
children (kindergarten – 6th grade) are naturally inquisi-
tive and need little reason why they should learn some-
thing. Make it fun and interesting, and they will devour
enormous quantities of data. At this age, they’re naturally
homeschool.kbooks.com

Designed for
geared to memorizing, and classical education hits them at
their strength. As they get older, say the junior high years
of 7th – 9th grade, they become more pert or argumentative.

homeschoolers!
That is the natural, albeit a dangerous, time to teach them to
argue well through the mastery of logic. Thankfully, they
continue to mature and become more image conscious in
the high school years, say 10th – 12th grade. They are then

PRE-ALGEBRA
ripe for the learning of rhetoric.
Thus far, I’ve sought to make the case for continuing the
recovery of a very rigorous and time-proven approach to
education. Yet the most important part of this great edu-
cational model is still missing. Imagine a person with an
extraordinary grasp of the facts in many fields, an ability
to argue flawlessly with regard to his logic, and a winsome,
ALGEBRA I
highly-developed sense of rhetoric, all-the-while having no
moral scruples nor being willing to submit to the Lordship
of Jesus Christ. What a disaster. That is why the purposes
ALGEBRA II
we promote at Veritas Press are classical Christian educa-
tion.
Furthermore, it’s important to see education as one of the
most religious things we do. The popular myth that educa-
tion is morally neutral is a lie. It matters who tells the story
of history, who writes the science book, and who describes
how things came to be. By what standard do we determine
what ought to be? This “oughtness,” as C.S. Lewis calls it
in Mere Christianity, is a God-given sense that needs to be
accompanied by knowing the God of the Bible. Anything
else is less than the complete truth. We cannot honestly
expect our children to be educated by the godless and then
to turn out godly. Christian children need a Christian edu-
cation.
One last concern. It’s the idea that classical Christian
education can be easy or rigorous and good, but not both.

First 2000
I must admit that some time ago this was a tradeoff one
needed to consider. Not anymore. Along with many other

who purchase
purveyors of tools to educate your children classically,
we have made it our mission at Veritas Press to help you
give your children the best education available without

GET OVER
compromise. Online education, planning tools, curricular
options, and consulting all contribute to making classical
Christian education not only the best option but a very eas-

1
OFF!
ily executed one. M.D.

—
Mr. Detweiler is the president and founder of Veritas Press
(www.veritaspress.com). He and his wife, Laurie, have four
boys (ages 19 – 24) and a border collie. They live in Lancaster
County, PA. 3
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 71
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Version 3.3, Level 1 (Latin American Spanish)
continued from page 57
tomizable portions include
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than-perfect, which the
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The Standard With Read-
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letters of the alphabet and
letters sounds preliminar-
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this work. There is also a
Reading & Writing Focus
section that trains atten-
tion on those who need
to know how to write and
read their chosen language
of study. The Dashboard
tracks the performance of
each lesson, its completion
and elapsed time, allowing
the parent or older student
to monitor progress and
evaluate areas that might
need more work.
The general program
offers an Audio Com-
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provides practice and
reinforcement of the basic
lessons. This set includes
Language Basics; Greet-
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with all of the vocabulary,
grammar and phrase work
needed to converse in the
language in all phases of
everyday life. The Ro-
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and played in the car or
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Turn Knowledge into College Credit material.
Succeeding on UExcel exams can
continued from page 27 credit. actually do much more for your stu-
self study.” “Excelsior’s decades of experi- dent than validate his or her education.
The Power of the Transcript ence and reputation in examination It can help to demonstrate their moti-
One of the biggest challenges with development and online education,
vation and dedication to higher edu-
traditional credit-by-examination pro- combined with ACE evaluation, pro-
cation and become an extra point in
grams is that once students have taken vides colleges and universities with
their favor in the admissions process,
a test, they just get a score. It’s up to assurance that the credit awarded is an
putting them ahead of students with
individual institutions to review that accurate measure of expected college-
similar profiles. Better yet, once the
score and interpret it as college credit level learning,” said Dr. Patrick Jones,
UExcel exams help a student get into
or a substitute for a college-level class. dean of assessment at Excelsior Col-
college, it will put them ahead of the
But when students pass a UExcel lege. “The cost benefit to students
game by saving both time and money
exam, they receive a letter grade and taking UExcel examinations can be
on their college education.
credit from Excelsior College, a re- significant.”
Encourage Effort, Reward
gionally-accredited institution, on an Getting ahead of the Game in Achievement
official Excelsior College transcript. College You’ve chosen homeschooling for a
With this transcript in hand, home- For homeschooled children, getting reason: You want what’s best for your
school students can submit it for trans- into a good college can sometimes be
child. As you evaluate the next steps
fer credit to their desired institution. challenging. These students have the
in higher education planning, consider
Thousands of colleges and universi- intelligence and knowledge to do well
the colleges and universities that will
ties accept credit-by-examination, but in college, but some universities have
reward your homeschooler for all of
credit is always awarded on a case-by- difficulty determining just how much
her or his hard work. The credit-by-
case basis. Having letter grades on a students have learned. Let’s face it,
examination option may be just what
transcript may smooth
you need to
the way for receiving Source of Credit Cost Per Credit acceler ate
transfer credit from
your home-
their preferred univer- UExcel Exam ($85 flat fee) $14 - $28 depending on exam taken
schoole r’s
sity. Students will need Community College $80 average post-second-
to ask their college if Public University $220 average ary educa-
they can receive trans- Private University $820 average tion and save
fer credit, waive lower-
money in the
level courses or fulfill admission many schools of higher education lack
process.
requirements using their transcript. confidence in the transcripts provided Learn More Now
Credit Recognition Promotes by homeschooled families, causing
Websites for credit-by-examination
Excellence students to be waitlisted or denied programs offer guidance on which
Like other credit-by-examination admission. That’s where the UExcel
college and universities accept credit-
programs, UExcel exams have been exams can help because they provide
by-examination. They also offer
evaluated by the American Council a measurable and credible way for ho-
complete information on register-
on Education’s College Credit Recom- meschooled students to demonstrate
ing for tests, plus practice test links,
mendation Service (ACE CREDIT) their learning. Having real college
downloadable content guides and lists
for the award of college credit. To credit on an official transcript from an
of recommended textbooks to help
receive formal recognition by ACE, accredited institution, like Excelsior
students prepare for exams.
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www.excelsior.edu/exams

Page 76 HomeschoolMagazine.com
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Since 1987 homeschool families have loved
this
Sinceunique language artsfamilies
1987 homeschool programhave
because
lovedit’s
fun
this and engaging.
unique language Thearts
guided exercises
program in it’s
because
Writing Strands progress
fun and engaging. incrementally
The guided exercises in
and allowStrands
Writing students to work
progress independently,
incrementally
yet
andprovide the guidance
allow students to work students need to
independently,
sharpen
yet theirtheability
provide to inform,
guidance persuade
students need to
and entertain
sharpen in writing.
their ability to inform, persuade
and entertain in writing.
College Experience for Homeschooling High-School Students.
continued from page 29
scribed and analyzed according to themes, both affective
and cognitive, that arose out of a comparative data analysis
process. The themes of affective development identified
through the students’ comments were: Expanded personal
vision; sense of legitimacy and reflections on identity and
perception by others; perspective on individual choice
and personal responsibility; engagement with the college
environment, students and faculty; recognition of ability
to negotiate for better learning opportunities; adaptability
to age-diversity in the academic setting (range of ages in
UHH college classes can be from 16 to 80+ years); and a
recognition of the differing roles of college instructor ver-
sus high school teacher.
The comments of my focus group students correlated
very closely with the affective benefits of college atten-
dance by young adults (post-high-school) documented in
the academic literature, leading me to conclude that high
school students should be offered and should take advan-
tage of opportunities for enrollment in courses on college
campuses during their high school years.
Homeschoolers are ideally situated to participate in such
opportunities if they live within commuting range of a
tertiary institution. On-line college courses, while valuable,
do not offer the extensive affective development possibili-
ties which I believe are the most helpful to students taking
early college courses. One of my students commented: “At
college you’re actually doing stuff worth doing . . . People
will like discuss what’s going on. You can actually talk to
them about stuff in your class and they’ll have interesting
things to say – they’re not just, like, bored.” Other students
agreed, noting: “It’s more of a choice learning environment
than a forced one, you know.” “Yeah, if you want to choose
to do a lot of work, then it’s there for you.”
Coming to a recognition that the student himself or her-
self had to take responsibility to seek help if studies weren’t
going well, seemed to be an epiphany that all of the students
I interviewed had experienced. Perhaps the need to take
the initiative on one’s learning path is more likely to be a
surprise to students from a school background, but learning
to speak up and take steps to seek help from professors and
college resource centers is not a guaranteed early achieve-
ment of those from the homeschool setting. Homeschooled
students are, by definition, likely to be independent learners
who might take longer to realize the benefits of co-opera-
tive study and office hours. One of my Running Start study
participants summed it up well: “It feels like the teachers,
the professors – they support you being there and stuff,
but it’s not the same as, like, if you’re in high school and,
like, you’re failing or something, or you’re getting a bad
grade, the teacher will come and talk to you and tell you,
like, you’re getting a bad grade; . . . you have to keep track
of that for yourself at the college. If you need help and you
go to the teacher [professor], they’re, like, totally willing to
help you. From my experience, they’re not going to tell you
that you need help, so you have to have the initiative for
yourself to go talk to them, go to their office, whatever you
have to do. It’s like a little bit of a different dynamic.”
And, because it’s a different dynamic from the relaxed
and inherently supportive environment of the home or un-
schooling setting, that’s exactly why I recommend it as an
option for homeschooled high school students. Disjunctive
experiences such as these are well documented by educa-
tional academics as very important because development is
often stimulated when a person’s experiences do not match
his or her expectations; the individual is forced to seek new
ways to understand and function within the experience and
grows in the process.
Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge.
One researcher, Kroll, sees the process of intellectual matu-
ration as a movement from a belief in what he terms “ig-
norant certainty” towards what he calls “intelligent confu-
sion.” A student’s experience of college, both affective and
cognitive, parallels this change in world-view rather well.
For most, the sense of confusion eases over time through
the process of increasing maturity, as the individual learns
the skills of evaluating evidence rationally in order to come
to an independent point of view in which the individual
feels confident in confronting the issues of the world, issues
that s/he discovers to be far more complex than they at first
may have appeared.
It is my contention that students, homeschoolers par-
ticularly, stand to gain a huge advantage from early par-
ticipation in college courses offered on the college campus,
interacting as though with their peers of regular age. To
me, taking college courses (either full or part-time) during
high school represents for homeschooled students the op-
tion to begin the process of self-authorship. College classes
provide them with the chance to “leave the shade of the
family tree”, enjoy some sunshine and plan for that “place
in the sun”, without getting sunburnt in the process. Early
college attendance offers homeschoolers the best of both
worlds, including the option to go in and out of the shade
of the family tree.
“Each man must look to himself to teach
him the meaning of life. It is not something dis-
covered: it is something moulded.” Antoine de
Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars (1939, p.29)
J.R.
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 79
The Developmental Potential of Music
continued from page 38
and enhances small, fine motor development,” she
explained. “Swinging in beat to the music and wav-
ing scarves improves rhythmic coordination and other
gross motor skills. Even simple rocking sends incred-
ible amounts of information to the brain. When you
shift your weight, you are actually falling and recover-
ing.”
An important developmental byproduct of the Music
Together curriculum, Janet said, is that learning to en-
joy and make music, often gives a special-needs child
“appropriate leisure skills” that can help her function
more fully in society. “The music experience is often a
special-needs child’s first opportunity to be able to par-
ticipate fully as a member of a group in a recreational
way,” she said. “After all, a function of music is to en-
rich life, which is developmental in and of itself.”
As Joan Hammond explains it, music is vital not only
because it promotes Harrison’s development directly,
but also because it makes her son happy. When he is
upset, playing a cassette tape calms him down. When
he listens to a song, his attention span increases notice-
Teton Science Schools
continued from page 54
Professional Staff
Whether students enroll in one of the school and
youth group programs or one of the summer pro-
grams, it is the mission of Teton Science Schools’ staff
to ensure that all students -- kids and parents -- leave
with a profound understanding and appreciation for
this area’s unique eco-system and how to apply those
lessons to their own local environment.
With over 25 years of experience in environmental,
outdoor and science education, Jack Shea, Executive
Director since 1988, selects staff and faculty that not
only have college degrees and often advance degrees
but have extensive experience teaching ecology, geol-
ogy, and other subjects, in the great outdoors to stu-
dents of all ages.
Campuses and Accommodations
All programs take place on one of two campuses
-- Jackson Campus, where the students live in mod-
ern dormitory-style buildings or Kelly Campus, the
historic original campus, where they sleep in rustic
ably, thereby facilitating further development.
“I can’t say enough about how important it is with
a developmentally impaired child to find what makes
him tick,” Joan said. And with Harrison, the spark
that lights him up is music. “When you find whatever
makes him tick, then you find the child,” she explained,
“and you bring out things in him that you never thought
possible.”
Music Together is an internationally-recognized
early childhood music and movement curriculum for
babies, toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and the
adults who love them. Originally offered to the public
in 1987, it pioneered the concept of a research-based,
developmentally appropriate early childhood music
curriculum that strongly emphasizes and facilitates
adult involvement.
Music Together classes are now offered in more than
2,000 communities in over 30 countries around the
world. Teacher trainings are also available as are our
award-winning CDs and “Music Together® Family
Favorites® Songbook for Teachers.” For more infor-
mation, visit www.musictogether.com/TheLink.
cabins located inside Grand Teton National Park. All
of the buildings located on the Jackson campus were
designed and built with high performance design
standards.
Regarding meals, Ms. Daltoso noted that Teton
Science Schools provide a wonderful assortment of
healthy options at each meal.
By taking great advantage of the lands of Grand
Teton Yellowstone National Park, National Elk Ref-
uge and Bridger-Teton National Forest, Teton Science
Schools offer every student an enriching and unique
educational experience that fosters a great respect and
deep understanding of outdoor life.
For more information, visit www.tetonscience.org
or call 307.733.1313.
“Must we always teach our children with books?
Let them look at the mountains and the stars above.
Let them look at the beauty of the waters and the
trees and flowers on earth. They will then begin to
think and to think is the beginning of a real educa-
tion.”
-- David Polis
HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 81
Dig It! Games’ Interactive Archeology Computer year of unit study could lear ning to any child
Game – Roman Town be developed using Ro- who can read and com-
continued from page 55 behind, but archeologists man Town as the starting prehend of age 7 to 10.
rial and that pieces of know from writings and point. Visit the website http://
wooden furniture are not pictures that the Romans Roman Town is very d i g- itgame s .com for
found in these digs be- used wooden furniture. reasonably priced and complete infor mation
cause wood biodegrades With a bit of thought offers hours of quiet, a n d a s a m ple of t h e
and no signs are ever left and creativity, an entire valuable enjoyment and game.

Homeschooled Entrepreneur Connor Bernstein Homeschooling, Pop Culture and Creative Expression
and Kits for Kids continued from page 11 interesting journey as we
continued from page 23 at a local community acceptable. Instead, we work with other musicians
time to do that if I home- college, which I loved. experimented. We had in the recording studio and
schooled. My mom and I I completed the class something to write about begin to blend our artistic
decided to take the jump. with three college credit and we did our best to vision with that of others.
At the end of 8th grade, hours. Thanks to a ho- set it down on paper. We We are learning to decide
I had to decide what to do meschool connection, I searched for chords and where conventional wis-
with 9th grade. It seemed was able to take a class rhythms that felt right to dom is effective and can
as though I had two op- called “Launch the Ven- us. In the beginning we enhance and balance our
tions: I could go back to ture” at the University of were almost too focused personal creative habits,
public high school full North Carolina’s Kenan- on avoiding anything we now that we know what
time, or I could home- Flagler business school deemed “normal”, and those habits are. Working
school full time. How- and received 4.5 college perhaps we neglected to off the secure foundation
ever, I knew I would not credits. This course re- appreciate that some rec- of lifelong homeschooling,
have enough time to work ally gave me the knowl- ognizable elements add we know we won’t lose
on Kits for Kids if I went edge I needed to get my to the universal appeal of sight of who we are and
to a regular high school. business off the ground. music. But we were work- what we want to express.
I liked homeschooling, The workload was in- ing from our own palette, I wasn’t born musical,
but needed more time tense and fast paced -- I oblivious to the standard and music hasn’t even
with kids my own age. had to learn to work at paint box known to school come very easily to me
My mom and I decided a much higher academic rock bands immortal. at certain points. Given
to think outside the box, level. If I hadn’t been ho- It has been two years a conventional education
and I ended up attend- meschooled, there is no since the birth of Washer, and learning environment,
ing a charter high school way I would have been our art/folk/experimental I don’t know how my life
in the morning and ho- able to take this class. duo, and we are currently would have looked. In-
meschooling the rest of Homeschooling has been recording our first EP. stead, I was allowed and
the day. This is a great an inspiration to my mom These days we are experi- expected to discover what I
schedule because I have and me. menting with a few of the was most passionate about
time to be with other kids I’m so glad I have had basic conventions that we through many years of trial
my age in the morning, the opportunity to share passed by in the beginning and exploration. Given this
but I come home and I my experiences and goals (think 1-4-5 chord progres- freedom, and uninitiated
have time to focus on with you all through The sions), because we are curi- into the world of what was
Kits for Kids and other Link, and I hope you ous what will happen when “in” and what wasn’t, I had
educational activities that have enjoyed my story! I we try to do things the to develop my own frame-
I would not normally be love to hear from people! standard way, but we are so work, and outgrow my love
able to do. For example, Please feel free to visit steeped in our own way of of imitation and repetition
one outstanding oppor- me website (www.kits- doing things that we can’t to find my creative voice.
tunity I had was taking forkids.com) to connect help sounding like our- E.M.
a General Biology class with me. C.B. selves. It continues to be an

HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 83
Enjoying the Process
continued from page 31
my body, and reduce the number of
times a year I go on white sugar-bak-
ing sprees. I am gradually learning to
enjoy the process of thinking through
what I am eating, and relishing the
days when my blood sugar level helps
me to concentrate instead of bounc-
ing off the ceiling.
Thinking through deeper issues,
including religion, philosophy, and
the ultimate meaning of life and
death, is also a process. We should all
try to recognize that everyone needs
to go through these processes on their
own. Once we believe that we have
discovered the truth for ourselves,
there is a huge tendency to want to
take that product and hand it on a
platter, pre-formed and suitable for
framing, to everyone we meet. While
it is always fine to share, it is much
better to enjoy the process of listening
to others, while helping them to think
through their own ideas on the sub-
ject. I figure that if I am correct in my
own view of the truth, then that truth
will be able to stand up to analysis
and criticism from others. If there are
areas where I am still in error, I may
also benefit from listening carefully
to the ideas of others. No matter what,
each individual will need to process
this information on their own, and
arrive at their own conclusions. Other
than planting seeds for thought, there
is little I can do to speed up the pro-
cess for them anyway. There is an old
saying that “God doesn’t have any
grandchildren.”
And speaking of grandchildren,
I am looking forward to the days
when I will be able to put my new-
found wisdom to work once again.
My mother used to say, “You get
so soon old, and so late smart.” For
you younger moms, or moms-to-be,
I hope you will make an effort to
enjoy the processes you are sharing
with your children today. Don’t waste
potentially joyful moments worrying
about products which will almost
certainly develop in due time, when
the children are ready.
In my favorite musical, “Fiddler on
the Roof”, there is a song that called,
“Sunrise-Sunset”, which says, “Sun-
rise, sunset; Sunrise, sunset; Swiftly
fly the years; One season following
another; laden with happiness and
tears.”
Learn to focus on and to savor the
processes you are going through each
day, whether you are in the midst of
joy or sorrow, and concentrate less
on products, especially those that
are rooted in the expectations of
others, and I believe you will have
discovered one of the most important
secrets of all. M.H.

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HomeschoolMagazine.com Page 85
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